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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24335416">I Can See Us Gather at the Gates</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana'>lilith_morgana</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flesh and bone [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Drinking, Eventual Smut, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Pre-Relationship, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:46:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>31,798</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24335416</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He doesn’t trust mages, she doesn’t trust Qunari; it feels oddly fair.</i><br/>A former Circle mage and an estranged Qunari spy get entangled in each other’s lives over assorted Thedosian drinks.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Inquisitor/Iron Bull, Iron Bull/Female Trevelyan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flesh and bone [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818775</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Butterbile 7:84 (Hinterlands)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>These chapters are all loosely inspired by the Bottles of Thedas codex. </p><p>Title from the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSi6S6plDVs">Islands and shores</a> by The Deportees.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p><br/>“So, whatever I am, I’m on your side,” the Qunari says and she wishes it would be that simple.<br/><br/>They’re deep in the trenches of a war that breaks her heart but means nothing to him and Anne tightens her grip around her staff as she welcomes him. He doesn’t trust mages, she doesn’t trust Qunari; it feels oddly fair.<br/><br/>For now, she promises herself. It’s all for now.<br/><br/><br/>---<br/><br/><br/>She’s fourteen when they bring her to the Circle in Ostwick, fourteen and with ribbons around her wrists like her mother has told her lovers have - silk and laces to remember each other and their promises. It’s a silly childhood tale carried over to an adulthood she will never truly have. Her mother's fingers trembling against Anne’s skin, struggling to tie, to release, to sacrifice. <em> You are my dearest child</em>, she whispers, <em> my heart and soul. </em> Anne is the first-born, the golden girl; Anne is polite and pliable and at least passably pretty. </p><p>And Evelyn's screams as the Templars arrive, her furious fits as though she had thought until this very moment that Anne's late blooming magic would go away, that Evelyn in all her gallant stubbornness could prevent it.</p><p>It ought to be Evelyn out here, Anne thinks as she wrings out her sodden skirts and counts the blisters, the chafes, the hushed-up griefs. </p><p>Bold, headstrong Evelyn who would know what to make of them, this wretched band of fighters. She would laugh with the Qunari and Varric, be a sister to Sera, question Solas’s supposed expertise; she would not mind Warden Blackwall’s suggestive reverence or Vivienne grasping at everything not to fall; her Inquisition would find its way.<br/><br/>But Evelyn’s in Tantervale with the Templars or former Templars and it’s Anne who’s here.</p><p>Anne who’s thirty-five, and through no choice of her own yet by all means suddenly an <em> apostate </em> and now stuck in a remote campsite where everything hurts.<br/><br/>Placing an icy cloth over her injured ankle - it’s not even a battle wound, she had <em> tripped </em> down a bloody hill - as she looks out over the surroundings, she sighs deeply. It’s deceptively peaceful here for the time being, which only makes her more alert to every sound and whisper among the trees. The land bleeds and the magic runs thick and angry through it, driving up injuries and exposing old scars.<br/><br/>“That rift over there,” the Qunari says and nods towards the field where they’d just fought a long stream of demons. “<em>Damn</em>.”<br/><br/>“What of it?”<br/><br/>“It was a good fight, that’s all. Not usually fond of fighting demons but whatever you did with your magic out there?” His voice thickens with pleasure; Anne feels inexplicably intrigued. She’s known enchanters like this, too, has listened to their tales told in dark notes and hoarse words. The sensuality of battle, the physical thrill of balancing on the edges between life and death, the way it lands in your gut. She wonders if it can be taught, if she can learn, if he can show her. Would she want that? ”It <em> worked</em>. My blade just sliced through them like they were butter.”</p><p>“I’m-” she cuts herself off, closes her mouth over a reference to the differences between Tevinter and Orlesian magical traditions, refrains from a long explanation about how she had indeed attempted a spell based on something she read in a book Vivienne had given her a few days ago.<br/><br/>“I’m glad,” she says instead.<br/><br/><br/><br/>---<br/><br/><br/></p><p>“Woah,” The Iron Bull makes an impressed sound as she pilfers the bottle from an abandoned pack near a dead scout. There’s a callousness to the motion that jars - <em>cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky, rest at the Maker's side and be forgiven</em> - but she practices her new life in all the ways she can, ever the dutiful apprentice. “Good find.”<br/><br/>“Is it?”<br/><br/>“Trust me. You’ll share this with your crew later?” He jokes, she can tell, but there’s a serious tint to the question.<br/><br/>“If you behave.” She smiles into her pack where she puts the bottle, tucks it away beneath potions and soaking wet gloves. </p><p>They don’t drink in the Circle of Ostwick. (Or didn’t, before it fell. Didn’t, didn’t, <em> did </em>not, all is in the past and she will have to unlearn so many words and habits.) At least not officially though Anne had known of at least a dozen different ways to get mulled Antivan wine or Fereldan strong liquor carefully delivered to her quarters, should she have wanted to.  </p><p>“Sounds bleak,” Varric comments when she tells them, out in a windy campsite along the Storm Coast. “If any place could use a few good drinks, it’s gotta be a Circle. Or so I’ve heard.”<br/><br/>He’s heard everything, Anne thinks. Or thinks he’s heard it and makes the rest up. It’s pleasant and annoying at the same time, an incessant stream, a low hum of words that she has to make <em> sense </em> of while they’re climbing and moving and she, quite frankly, has enough bother with the armour and the rain. Always this blighted rain.<br/><br/>“I didn’t mind my Circle much. And the food was brilliant.” She says it without thinking and regrets it immediately.<br/><br/>It’s such a childish position in the middle of this raging, bloody war. To wish for peace because it was <em> decent </em> back then, because the imposed restrictions on magic had suited <em> her </em>specifically, been kind to her personal desires that mostly consist of nice food, warm drinks, a comfortable bed and a huge library for research and experiments. She’s too clever for that sort of assessment and the embarrassment makes her cheeks flush red. </p><p>The Iron Bull walks by her side and as usual she glances at him. Typically, she does it with everyone, trying to sort them out in her mind, unravel their patterns and fit them into a bigger picture. Now she glances at the Qunari because she has half a mind to explain something that there are no sufficient words to diplomatically express - the structure of power, the hierarchies of fear and oppression, the weight of history, the uncountable losses - and he seems to be the kind who understands the unspoken. </p><p>"So. Tell me about the food, Boss," he says, on cue.<br/><br/><br/></p><p>---</p><p>
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</p><p>She splits the bottle with him later that night.<br/><br/>It rains, again.<br/><br/>They’ve lost most of their healing supplies and two foot soldiers trying to put down rogue Templars and apostates refusing to join their cause; their campsite is unfortified and wet and Anne feels angry, exhausted tears stinging in the corners of her eyes as she yanks the cork from the bottle and pours drinks. One for her, one for the Iron Bull who nods at her as he takes a first mouthful.<br/><br/>It’s not a victory toast.<br/><br/>For the best, she decides as she takes a first sip, because the contents of the bottle isn’t worthy of a celebration. It serves its purpose better as a comfort. </p><p>One drink, then she'll write up a report for the Commander, outlining all her stumbling efforts of drawing support for their cause and restoring some semblance of peace to a region as torn apart as the Veil.</p><p>In the Circle she had her own corner of the vast library, a desk dedicated to her notes and research, a small room nearby devoted to experiments and practical investigations. The Templars left her alone, the younger mages had no interest in her and the rebels and reformists had considered her an old conservative. Now that makes her smile grimly to herself. <br/><br/>The Conclave has burned away her past, cleaning her slate and leaving her bare.<br/><br/>“I’m too old to be this - ” She glares darkly into the cup, holding back the word she doesn’t want him to write in his spy reports back home to Par Vollen or Seheron or wherever. Inexperienced. Incompetent. "<em>Shit</em>. Don't mind me."</p><p>"Nah." He drinks greedily and <em> gets </em> it, regardless. "You’re <em> ashkaari</em>. One who thinks."</p><p>“I’m a grown woman.” Anne sneers at her half-empty mug of butterbile, there’s a spicy undercurrent that lingers at the back of her tongue, a reminder. "You don't have to flatter me."<br/><br/>“Huh.” Bull makes a face that’s half amused, half serious. “I don't, Boss. Well, I could if you asked me to, but I don’t. I also don’t know anyone else around here who can sew those damn gaps in the sky shut. So there is that.”<br/><br/>She stretches her legs in front of her, feeling the strong drink’s effect on her limbs, her blood, her mood. When she looks up and catches Bull’s gaze tracing the ungraceful lines of her body with that grin still on his face, there’s a jolt of something deep and dark landing in her gut.<br/><br/>“There <em> is </em> that,” she agrees, eventually, emptying her drink.<br/><br/></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Carnal 8:69 Blessed (Hinterlands)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Five + one letters the Iron Bull writes to Par Vollen</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <strong>1.</strong>
</p><p><br/>He's barely left the boat in Jader but already thinks about the report he'll write about the journey. </p><p>The air is cooler than in Par Vollen, the streets smell differently than those in Qunandar. People stare. They'd stare in Seheron, too, but not like this, not so brazenly showing him their fear and disgust - surprisingly often interlaced with open-mouthed desire. He's pretty sure most of them don’t know from one second to the next if they want to butcher him or ride his filthy Qunari cock. Both, probably. It will certainly be useful. </p><p>He gets a meal, a bedroll in a hovel by the tavern and asks a barmaid for some parchment and ink. She gives him a long glance at first, her bright green eyes fastened on his horns, his shoulders, the scars on his arms; he’s half-expecting her to ask if oxmen can even write and has a response ready - suitably dry but still polite - but then she simply nods.<br/><br/>“Right away.”<br/><br/>When she returns, she looks less hesitant. <em> Sturdier</em>.<br/><br/>“Thank you,” he says.<br/><br/>“No problem. What should I call you?”<br/><br/>Hissrad, he thinks out of instinct and habit, each letter like a lashing, a potion in the dark, a tamassran’s low and urgent voice in his ear, telling him their story of his time in Seheron until his mind snaps around its own corners, images twisting, tumbling, tearing. <em> Now, try again, tell us about the Tal-Vashoth. </em><br/><br/>“The Iron Bull,” he says, speaking the name out loud for the first time. There’s a beat, something inside him that goes quiet and something else that cracks open and he thinks it again - <em> the Iron Bull</em>. </p><p>“I met a mercenary who called himself Dawnstone,” the barmaid says, as she’s leaving. “Yours is better.”<br/><br/>“Don’t know about that. Dawnstone’s damn pretty.”<br/><br/>Her laughter lingers.<br/><br/>Yeah, he thinks. This he can do.<br/><br/>He writes the report. It’s <em> brief</em>, the matters he had observed already feel distant and less important in hindsight; it’s written in codes and standard phrases in Qunlat - and every word pulls him closer to his past, that <em> place </em> . He polishes his Trade by swapping the words in his head, replacing them with the language of <em> bas</em>.<br/><br/>The letter remains unsent in his pocket for three days.</p><p> </p><p> </p><hr/><p>
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</p><p> </p><p><strong>2.</strong><br/><br/><br/>When he joins the Fisher’s Bleeders, he tells Fisher he’s a Tal-Vashoth. It seems like good practice for the role.<br/><br/>“Had to get out of there,” he says. “Messed up my head.”<br/><br/>Lies are always better when they’re true.<br/><br/>And Fisher, he’ll soon find out, is a world-weary asshole and a crappy commander but he’s shaking the Iron Bull’s hand and welcomes him to the team all the same. Got to give him that.<br/><br/>“We don’t do any of that religious worship,” he says. “Mythal and Andraste can kiss my arse and so can - what’s the name again?”<br/><br/>The Iron Bull thinks about Seheron and the tamassrans, about the higher-ups and their clear, crisp solutions. <em> Anaan esaam Qun </em> . He thinks about Seheron, dreams about Seheron, though the images and memories are so dark he can barely see their reflections, the touch and taste of them fading, transforming. <em> Was that how it happened? </em>Months before he died, Vasaad had been angry about the re-education of a friend of his, about wastefulness and cruelty and Hissrad had placed a hand on his shoulder, told him they needed to focus their anger on the enemy. <em> And who are they, Hissrad? Who are they really? </em> He doesn’t know; he has always known; he doesn't want to know.<br/><br/>“Koslun,” he says.<br/><br/>“Right.” Fisher nods in agreement. “He can kiss my arse too.”<br/><br/>“Sounds good to me.”<br/><br/>His report home is clear and concise: he’s joined a group of mercenaries. Strength in numbers. They are heading for the border towns up north to pick up contracts. He’ll write as soon as he has more intel.</p><p>It takes him four months.</p><p>
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</p><hr/><p><br/><br/><br/><br/><strong>3.</strong><br/><br/><br/>The Iron Bull is a demand of the Qun.<br/><br/>He reminds himself when he writes the letters to Par Vollen; he lets it slip his own notice that he no longer thinks of it as <em>home</em>, as though he has a choice about the place of his birth and the purpose of his body. <em>Don’t get fucking stupid, Hissrad.</em><br/><br/>The tamassrans poke and prod in his memory, unrelenting and brutal in their attempts to heal the disease in him, quell the rage that destroys his loyalty to the Qun. He returns from Seheron with no conviction left in his body, no belief other than <em>you are wrong, you are wrong, you are wrong</em> and <em>please help me</em>. He answers their questions, endures the pain, accepts the punishments, he reads the books, he hears the wisdom and truth. He relearns his purpose, reclaims his path. At least enough. At least enough to keep him off qamek. At least so much that he knows that no matter what he has done - <em>what has he done?</em> - the Qun has his back, pushes him away from the savage Seheron had made him. And that the holes in his mind, the cavities full of questions are his own doing. They send him off with that - a prize or a punishment.<br/><br/><em>A self of suffering, brings only suffering to the world. It’s a choice, and we can refuse it. </em><em><br/></em><br/>The Iron Bull is a demand of the Qun.<br/><br/>A demand with a distinctive voice, rising between the mission and during them, falling into bicker and banter and campfire tales and some sort of camaraderie with rough edges. Tora, a Fereldan outlaw who never speaks much, asks him to help her get better at blocking. Then they share a cask of mead and she tells him she had to run away from Amaranthine after killing a lord with his own sword. Finch, a squirrely city elf always looking for a way out of it all, wants to know about ship routes and costs. The Iron Bull gets him on a boat headed for Kirkwall, tells him <em>that shit is no better than here</em> but Finch only shrugs. The company dwarf, Nokas, who fights with three axes and two daggers and wants to arm wrestle <em>with the sodding Qunari</em> even though he loses fifty times and seventy silvers. Then he invites himself to the Iron Bull’s tent for a different kind of wrestling. <em>What’s your preference, big guy? </em><em><br/></em><br/>Outside of the well-managed life he left behind? Damn if he knows. The Iron Bull, however, should.<br/><br/>He returns to Jader and finds the barmaid again.<br/><br/><em>Dawnstone</em>, he calls her and she remembers, of course. She’s flattered and flushed and he tells her he’s never been with a human woman before, which makes her blush all the way down to her tits. </p><p>Her name is Ilse and she's a flurry of limbs and moans and encouragement in his arms, planting wet kisses all over his chest and he lets her push him down on a too-narrow bed in the tiny house she calls her own. Human women, he learns, are smaller and softer and <em> bouncier</em><em>,</em> taste of salt and milk and laughs more.  <br/><br/>He writes a letter in the tavern afterwards - three long sentences, a few notes - about their mission along the border. Mentions sightings of straggling darkspawn hordes in the Hunterhorn Mountains.<br/><br/>All of it in cipher, nothing in Qunlat.<br/><br/><br/></p><p> </p><hr/><p>
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  <strong>4.</strong>
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</p><p>He picks them up, one by one, collects his boys from the outskirts of lives gone wrong.<br/><br/>First Krem, the scared little shape on the floor that later sits with a piece of cloth pressed to the empty eye socket as Bull tries to prepare the needle for sewing it shut. His hands aren't steady, the throbbing pain in his head hasn't subsided and he needs a healing potion but first things first. Not bleeding from his head seems a good priority. </p><p>"I could do that," the boy says, suddenly. "My father was a tailor."<br/><br/>Bull only hesitates a second before he nods, grimacing. "But I don't want any cross-stitches. No damn flowers, you hear me?" </p><p>And Krem closes the wound in silence, steady as a rock. He just stitches it together, as quietly and naturally as he later and from that moment on, attaches himself to Bull's side, offering an extra pair of eyes for the one lost saving the boy’s life.</p><p>An eye is a small price to pay. Bull doesn't exactly tell him that but he hopes the kid understands anyway. That he would do it again, hands down, no regrets. </p><p>A few months later they recruit Grim, then Skinner who reminds him so much of Gatt sometimes, all crude words and raw anger. On Seheron they tell Gatt to find peace in the Qun, gentle hands there to hold him back, rein him in, reshape his anger because there is no struggle. Here, in the south, Iron Bull tells Skinner to fuel her anger, to fight with it - <em> those shems would cut your throat in a heartbeat, show me you won’t let them, you gotta be quicker </em> ; he can’t imagine the fire in her eyes fading out into acceptance.<br/><br/>There are times - buried inside those deep cracks in his mind - when he thinks that all he ever does to these guys is shorten their lives, destroying their chances. When the Antaam comes, when the dreadnoughts appear on every sea in sight, they will be crushed rather than converted because of their fire, their questions, their defiance. Then - quickly, hurriedly before he catches himself doing it - he thinks that there are worse things than death.</p><p>They practice as much as they can, take all jobs they have the skills for and quite a few where he can compensate for the boys’ lack of experience by doing the fighting on his own. </p><p>It's no secret that he writes to Par Vollen, he tells them that up front - they sit around him as he writes. </p><p>It's no secret that he follows the Qun. They rarely ask; he never talks about it without being told to. And when he does, it’s all but foreign in his mouth by now, the words as distant as his fellow Qunari. Mastery and balance, he thinks but he is <em> weaker </em>here, the crisp, clear thoughts sink and become muddled. His mind is two places at once, tearing each other apart, his mind is nothing but one big tangle of knots and dead-ends. </p><p>"So you're gonna fight us when the Arishok arrives with his men?" Skinner asks, once. It’s the only time they ever discuss it properly; Bull writes in his letters that he expects to get several viddathari out of this mercenary company. "That how it works? I want to know."</p><p>"I wouldn't want that,” he answers honestly. </p><p>"So you'd what, tell your big boss to leave?"</p><p>He wants to say yes. The word is there, in his throat. He wants to think he'd openly defy an order, walk away from it all. But <em> that </em>would be a lie.</p><p>"Hey," he says instead, pressing back the reality of his lives into the void. No use thinking about something that will not happen. "Nobody's invading anyone. I have your backs. Like you have mine, right?”</p><p>"Good enough for me, Chief," Krem says and it is. </p><p>And it <em> isn't</em>.<br/><br/><br/><br/></p><hr/><p>
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  <strong>5.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Krem broaches the subject of joining the Inquisition, grabs it out of thin air and then he keeps talking about it for three days straight.<br/><br/>Three damn <em> days</em>.<br/><br/>They’ve just put down a few Tevinter slavers out in the Storm Coast and Dalish claims there’s a trail of them leading further into the mainland. Which means they should have their work cut out for them for the next few weeks. And that's <em> not </em> counting the blighted Breach.<br/><br/>But no, Krem has talked to people and they have it on good authority that the Inquisition is looking for recruits.<br/><br/>“It would be a good opportunity for yo - for <em> us</em>, Chief,” he says, stumbling over the intentions, clearing his throat. “We should join the big guys. Teach them a thing or two.”<br/><br/>“I hear the Herald of Andraste is a mage.” As far as protests go, even Bull has to admit this is a tame one. </p><p>"I hear you are a lazy spy who grew too old and fat to join a real cause." </p><p>"Watch it, Krem," he growls, but they both know the outcome of this.</p><p><em> I have an opportunity to join the Inquisition</em>, he writes. Outlines a brief plan, a few suggestions, a potential path forward.</p><p>Or backward. All these years without visible threads between his body and the body of the Qunari people - <em> you know it is the same, Hissrad, or have you forgotten? </em>- all these moments of respite. They’re closing in on the Iron Bull now, fucking dreadnoughts flanking him on both sides. </p><p>He feels the chains rattle as the reply comes. </p><p>
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</p><p><strong>+1</strong><br/><br/><br/>Every fortnight Iron Bull reports from an amusingly tiny table inside Haven’s little tavern. </p><p>Every fortnight it’s like a puzzle, trying to fit in there, horns and all. Flissa the barmaid had all but screamed when she first saw him but she likes him just fine now - she brings ales as large as they come and stays long enough for him to appreciate the view of her ass for a moment. Small pleasures in life. She understands them. </p><p>Once the letter is done, he heads up to the chantry to report the same thing first to Red then to Josephine who always greets him with, well, a fully understandable amount of fear and mistrust. She’s a good actress but not <em> that </em>good and thus slightly nervous around him, her eyes fluttering about in her head, not knowing where to look exactly. </p><p>Even so, she asks. </p><p>And he answers.  </p><p>It <em> really </em>isn’t more complicated than that, he tells himself because he’s always been an excellent liar.  </p><p><br/><br/>---<br/><br/><br/></p><p>The Herald is what he expected: far out of her element, tender-hearted, untrained for leadership and battle, and absolutely nothing like it: clever, resilient, adaptable, willing to learn.<br/><br/>She talks smoothly and strikes hard, she picks up strays all over the Hinterlands, offers comfort and then puts them to use. The bereaved lover, the misbehaving scout - Boss ushers them home like a mother hen and Red puts them to work. <em> I don’t want them to be out there, abandoned by everyone. That’s how you join cults and set people on fire. </em> She knows her own mind and she’s got an edge to it. Despite having spent most of her time in a Circle, she’s traveled, seen things, made mistakes. He can tell. There’s experience there, years lived. There’s something tried about her, a solid core underneath all that frilly human bullshit. </p><p>"If we need a leader, as you say," she states when he points out that their issues lie at the top. "I'm willing. There is no chance I am getting out of this anyway so I might as well handle it."</p><p>"You almost sounded like a Qunari there," he says and isn't sure if he means it as a compliment or an insult. <em> Oh no, Hissrad, you know. </em></p><p>Boss decides for him by scoffing. "Maker help me.”</p><p>Then she serves him drinks from another bottle of some damn good Orlesian liquor they found on their travels through the Hinterlands and asks him what he writes about the Inquisition in his letters<em> . </em> He tells her what he tells Red and Josephine, wonders if they keep track of Varric the same way or if they have a blind eye to the Carta. </p><p>She doesn’t <em> trust </em> him; he looks into her eyes and sees a wall, a mind used to both unambiguous laws and the cracks in them, a frustration that almost mirrors his own.<br/><br/>She doesn't trust him but she offers him her time and patience, he feels her magic brush past him in battle, angry and protective all at once and in the aftermath she checks them all for injuries. Him too, though he grunts his dismissive <em> I'm fine, Boss </em> . In passing, she throws him a salve that smells of black lotus and elfroot and citrus. <em> For sore muscles </em> she says and leaves before he's had time to argue about Qunari stamina.</p><p>To his own surprise he tries it later and <em> shit</em>, does it work. </p><p>She never mentions it again but it seems like she knows. </p><p><em> A capable leader, </em> he writes about her. <em> Does a good job for a good cause. </em> </p><p>It sounds meaningless enough to keep everyone happy. </p><p>
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  <em> So I did something I’ve never done - I took down two chapters and re-wrote them and changed the title of the fic. Sorry about the confusion.  </em>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Vint-9 Rowan’s Rose (Hinterlands)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>She goes for the soft spots.</p>
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    <p><br/>The Hinterlands are full of griefs, all these scattered things that don’t cohere.</p><p>They unravel some of them unwittingly, others they put to rest and yet some, Anne learns, simply cannot be budged. </p><p>It changes her, day by day. Not merely the constant travel and campsite life or the fighting, but the purpose and direction of what they've set out to do. After a life of careful consideration she is expected to think fast on her feet, launch herself into quick responses and mobilise her team of agents against all sorts of threats. She’s untrained, unused, unexpected.<br/><br/>But then there’s a family of refugees finding shelter in Haven because she kills the bandits surrounding their home; a haughty mage they gently coax into joining their side; a Tranquil offering his services to the Herald of Andraste; fires quelled and healers assisted; a questionable deal with some Fereldan noble in exchange for horses and weapons.<br/><br/>There are so many battles and she can’t win them all but she wins <em>enough</em>.<br/><br/>“I misjudged you,” Cassandra confesses, magnanimously.<br/><br/>“I didn’t,” Iron Bull says when they’re all camped out near Redcliffe and Anne sits wrapped in one of the soldier’s coats while her clothes dry by the fire; she can’t decide if his - supposed - clarity is comforting or terrifying.<br/><br/>If <em>he </em>is.<br/><br/><br/>---<br/><br/><br/><br/>He deflects all of Solas’s frustrated gripes with the Qun and closes around her questions about Qunari, about his past service, about life in Par Vollen. <em>Are you writing a book?</em> Out in the war-torn villages he mutters, low and menacing, about mages with too much freedom wreaking havoc and Anne thinks about sarebaas and their leashes, thinks about her months in Rivain with the other enchanters from Ostwick, the first time she saw a Qunari mage with her mouth sewn shut, her eyes never once looking up. <em>She serves the Qun</em>, her enforcer had said. <em>She is honoured for it, can the same be said for your mages?</em><br/><br/>“Life isn’t about freedom,” Iron Bull says. “Everything you call freedom is at the expense of others.”<br/><br/>“You’re wrong,” she says because oh, he <em>is </em>and fuck<em>, </em>he <em>isn’t </em>and either way he is clever enough to discuss it with her, throw her a few thoughts that are so thorny inside her mind that she frowns, choking on her reply. She hopes she does the same to him. There are times when they are deep into the tangles of Circles and rebellions and faith - in teachings, in people, in gods - when she wonders if he wants to convince or to be convinced.<br/><br/>He’s hiding his game in plain sight, keenly observing and shielding his insights beneath the hearty mercenary leader, the oxman in the group, the smooth-talking spy who claims to have no other agenda than the one he tells her about.<br/><br/>She prefers him nearby, to have her eyes and ears on him, almost out of habit; he reminds her vaguely of Templars, the practice of keeping himself under tight control, a certain watchfulness to every motion. There’s immense power in him, a vast fundament of education and experience and - she thinks as they pass a couple of hours of night watch or another uneventful walk through the forest together - there’s a crack in it, too. An <em>otherness</em> to him, setting him apart from the man he says he is or the man he pretends to be. Perhaps it's the inevitable fate of someone who passes as someone else, the merging of roles. <br/><br/>“I am <em>nothing </em>like them,” he says and <em>grimaces</em> when she asks about the Tal-Vashoths. It’s just a little bit, just for a moment, barely even noticeable.<br/><br/>But Anne saves it, hooks into the raw emotion in his voice. There is someone in there. <br/><br/><br/><br/>---<br/><br/><br/><br/>He wants to <em>help</em>. A weapon of the Qun probably doesn’t have to concern itself with the details or the morals of said details but he does, she can read it in his face, in the hundred little deeds they do to tend to the burning lands. The minutiae of the Inquisition. She feels awkward denying anyone anything and equally awkward admitting it but Iron Bull doesn’t tease her like Varric - <em>doing the rounds for the locals, Lucky</em> - or roll his eyes like Cassandra.<br/><br/><em>I'll go with you, Boss</em>, he announces simply when Anne mentions there's a grave nearby that she may have promised a widower to visit. So they go, just like that. </p><p>"I know you must find this silly but…" Her voice trails off as she kneels down and places the flowers carefully against the grave.<br/><br/>Bull’s gaze is firm on her. "Did I say that it was?"<br/><br/>“No, <em> you </em> didn’t.” Anne shrugs. Lets her eyes trace the inscription in all its simple, quiet love. <em> After all the long years you carried me</em>. A mage’s sentimentality, she thinks. Circles are full of them, all those unfulfilled longings for the ordinary, the mundane trappings of homes and spouses and children to fill out the years. "Anyway. It felt important. The war isn't his doing."<br/><br/>"It <em> was </em> important to him," he says, a different slant to his voice now, warmer. "People are people. Doesn't matter if there’s a war or not."<br/><br/>“Yes, that’s… yeah.”<br/><br/>Brushing her hands against her robes, she looks up at Iron Bull who regards her for a beat, that friendly look still lingering on his face when then he holds out his hand and Anne takes it on a whim, wondering what he’s playing at even as he drags her to her feet like she’s weightless - or a silly young girl considering that sort of thing important. To be swept away, a delicate creature. She isn't one but has to bite her lip to keep from grinning. He notices, the glint in his eye tells her as much. Anne looks down, at the point where they still touch, at the small union of their bodies, thinking <em> so this is how he does it </em> . His palm is dry and rough, calloused from a life bred for battle but not ungentle against her own and there's a swirl of something deep in her gut as he lets go of her.<br/><br/>The moment passes; as they set out to reunite with the others, casually debating the uses of elfroot, Anne thinks it might never have been there in the first place.  </p><p><br/><br/>---<br/><br/><br/><br/>Redcliffe sits like a wound in her thoughts when they make camp for the night.<br/><br/>There’s suddenly time-altering magic and Tevinter magisters and whatever argument she might have nursed for opting for Templar assistance with the Breach has ebbed out into a more urgent need to see what is going on with the tear in time. Someone like you would understand, one of the rebels had said to jwe, urgently and with a solemn face. Our cause. </p><p>Is it? Most of the rebellion in Ferelden at this point is merely violence shaped differently depending on how you look at it, grotesque shapes of fear and vengeance.<br/><br/>“No use worrying about it right now, Boss,” Bull says when they have finished their meal and watches the camp come to rest. Anne has volunteered to take the first watch with him and a few foot soldiers who are patrolling the outskirts of the site. They’re heading back to Haven to reassess and prepare and consider which are all very good and proper things but no immediate solution. <br/><br/>“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I worry about <em> everything </em> ahead of time,” she mutters into her mug of wine that he’s placed in her hands. She takes a mouthful and finds herself pleasantly surprised by the smoothness of it, the round, sweet flavour slipping down her throat. “Helps me prepare.”<br/><br/>“I know.” He sounds more matter-of-factly than smug, though she always assumes it’s a little bit of both with him.<br/><br/>Glancing sideways at her companion, she notices he’s still looking at her with that subtle intensity he has, the one that screams Ben-Hassrath spy to her but, she suspects, works like magic on lonely serving girls. Or chantry sisters - she’s heard the gossip and decided to bury it deep within her memory. So far, however, it keeps resurfacing and she blames nights like this one, blames the way he has of smoothing over everyone’s faults, including his own.<br/><br/>It <em> exhausts </em> her, thinking about the game he might have set up in her inner circle - <em>has he?</em> -  the positioning and studying. She escaped the endless game of the nobility, she isn't eager to start again. It’s the reason she keeps her distance to Varric, the man who’s always out of place wherever he is but pretends he’s a natural fit. <em>His</em> endgame is likely something that she has no energy or interest in figuring out and she doesn’t want the same to be true for Iron Bull, doesn’t <em> want </em>his easy company to be just a well-rehearsed act. </p><p>So she goes for the soft spots.<br/><br/>“Tell me about Seheron,” she says, pulling at the loose threads of him.<br/><br/>And Bull sighs, something shifting in his expression. Not for long, not much, but it’s <em> there</em>. Anne almost feels guilty for how much pleasure she derives from it, seeing him unsettled. It's only fair, she tells herself, wondering if it is.<br/><br/>“Alright,” he concedes. “What do you want to know?”<br/><br/>“What do you want to tell me?” </p><p><em> Nothing</em>, she guesses.<br/><br/>There’s a brief pause, then he talks while they drink, her body loosening up after two mugs of wine and his voice getting broader, too, more generous and less neutral, even a little bit of accent showing. He tells her about fog warriors and rebels, Tevinter soldiers and mages and death. A whole island full of death and him in the middle, wrangling the whole lot. <em> A sack of cats </em> he says, each syllable a blade. There’s a familiarity in the way he speaks of his past that touches her own, a shade of bitterness that she can almost <em>taste</em> in his voice. </p><p>She wonders if she would have touched him, had he been any other man. Placed a hand on his arm or let her hand brush over the back of his. With him, the thought seems impossible. He doesn’t tell her this to gain her pity, he only tells her this because she asked.<br/><br/>“I thought about letting some rebel kill me, but I couldn’t give any of those bastards the satisfaction.” He looks straight at her and there's honesty in him now, a kind that startles. “The Ben-Hassrath ordered me to go to Orlais, ostensibly as a Tal-Vashoth, and work undercover. That’s how I ended up here.”<br/><br/>She makes the slightly uncomfortable notion that whatever happened in Seheron, whatever the whole truth behind the scant words he offers her actually <em>is </em>and how long ago he claims it was, it seems to still be siphoning something from him and she’s struck by the sudden urge to make it <em>stop</em>, to tear him away. <br/><br/>“I’m glad you’re here, Bull,” she says instead, uselessly. At least it's the truth.<br/><br/>“Me too, Boss.” He offers a quick smile. “Me too.”<br/><br/>And perhaps he <em>is</em>, and perhaps there’s a whole world full of strings attached to those words, but tonight she lets it rest, buries it with the other unsolvable, inconsolable fragments. <br/><br/>The Hinterlands are full of griefs and she’ll take her comforts where she can find them.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Bull giving approval for that <i>Flowers for Senna</i> quest bloody well gives me life. </p><p>As always - love to hear what you think. Thanks for reading!</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Vintage Warden: Carver</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Neither of them has chosen war.</p>
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  <b>4: Vintage Warden: Carver</b>
</p><p> </p><p><br/>Neither of them has chosen war: <br/><br/> <br/><br/><br/></p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>They teach her that she’ll fall prey to corruption.<br/><br/>They say <em> when</em>, not if.<br/><br/>She’s nineteen and the pride demon laughs while the desire demon whispers in her ear; her hands clutch at the staff and the silly charms she wears around her neck and wrists, stones and crystals to remind her, keep her on the path, protect against the dangers of her own mind. Afterwards the templars nod curtly to her and the First Enchanter offers his hand. She has passed her test, they say, as though it marks something. As though all the other tests do not remain. </p><p>She’s twenty-two and there’s an abomination in front of her. Ilian, his name is <em> Ilian </em> and her magic comes out in flushes and waves, wedged in between the sobs. The templars storm the room, caging him and caging <em> her </em> , she can feel their powers clamp down on her own until it no longer flows out of her body, until she’s curled up on the carpet. <em> I wasn’t going to hurt him, it was self-defense</em>.<br/><br/>She’s twenty-seven, sent as an emissary to Nevarra and the templars travelling with her are experienced, relaxed. They call her Trevelyan or <em> Anne </em> , a small wonder spreading at the sound of her given name. For a few days, she feels like an ordinary person going on an ordinary trip. Small talk, shared meals, a walk in the garden on a sunny day. By accident they come across a group of hedge mages summoning spirits and she tries to intervene, an instinct as natural as grabbing hold of a falling body or ducking a blow. A part of her is relieved at the familiarity of the scene that follows: templars draining her energy, holding her down, breaking up the turmoil and escorting her back inside. <em> That’s enough</em>, one of them tells her, voice low and reassuring. <em> You’re safe now</em>. It’s not until much later that she is struck by the desire to counter his statement, to tell him that she’s <em> got </em> it.<br/><br/>She’s thirty-three when the flames of rebellion begin and even then, even with twenty years of magical experience intricately weaved into her bones, she’s <em> afraid</em>. For herself, <em> of </em> herself. The Circles are falling, the Chantry is failing, the Templar order is lost in their own systems of oppression and she resigns to independence. There will be wars, everyone says so. There will be wars and she practices magic until her mana is so low she can barely breathe, brings old tomes of long-deceased battle-mages to bed and tries to invoke their spirit, their <em> faith </em> but she has always been a faithless wreck. </p><p>She’s thirty-five and they’ve made a bloody Herald of her.<br/><br/><br/><br/></p><hr/><p><br/><br/><br/>He’s Ashkaari; he will serve.<br/><br/>They train him for Antaam's endless, necessary battle in the jungles of Par Vollen, full of lush terrain and open spaces. There’s joy in it settling deep and low in his gut, a soaring triumph only clouded by what the Qun teaches about savagery and a strong mind. Tama says he’s too defiant for the spirit of Antaam. <em> The boy would make a poor soldier. </em> He overhears it when he’s meant to be doing his reading, overhears it again when he’s supposed to sleep, buries the words at the back of his mind. All progress hurts, like all imekari he knows this. Pain has a purpose and this is <em> purpose</em>. </p><p><em> Asit tal-eb</em>. It is to be. </p><p>He’s Hissrad; he will serve. </p><p>At first this is simple. Qunandar is a haven - large enough to offer freedom, safe enough to harbour dissent and doubt. Smugglers make for entertaining, intricate prey and he’s clever. He spots agents in the quiet corners of the cities, he discerns patterns and flaws. There are friends under the Qun, there are easy, happy days and temporary distractions.<br/><br/>But Seheron isn’t Qunandar, Seheron is an open, salt-sprayed wound. Life follows no logic other than that of occupation and violence: yet another Tevinter fleet, another group of Tal-Vashoths plundering a village, another double-agent, another civilian casualty when he has promised himself there would be none. Life is a condition of constant awareness, wakefulness ; he swears he will not let it tire him, swears his loyalty will not be broken. His spirit may be unsuited for the Antaam, his penance for hitting and lying may require tighter reins and he may be more of a savage than his peers but he will accomplish <em> this </em> .  </p><p>So he does.<br/><br/>Hour by hour at first, a shattering of the world. He breaks it down to rubble and pieces it back together. He lets himself feel pain for as long as it takes to sheathe the weapon, allows grief until the report is done. Then no more.<br/><br/>And the fighting stops being fighting, stops being special, erodes every line around his body and heart and becomes <em> everything</em>. Becomes his skin, his thoughts, his language.<br/><br/>One year. He marks it in his mind.<br/><br/>Two years. It’s good work, spiritual work. It restores order. That is what they tell him in Par Vollen. That is what he must do with his anger unless he wants to fall, to lose himself to it - <em> good work</em>.<br/><br/>Three years. Longer than everyone he has heard about, now. He feels proud, then ashamed of feeling proud. He’s not here for personal gain.<br/><br/>Four years. Tama used to tell them a story about a girl lost in the jungles. A scared child, looking for a way back to her peers, wondering if the path she was walking truly would take her home. She began looking for signs, for lights in the darkness. Eventually she saw what she was looking for and followed, but it only ever led her astray. Superstition, Tama had explained. The silly girl should have kept walking because all paths lead somewhere.<br/><br/>Five years. The Vints and the Tal-Vashoth and an arriving group of new Ashaad all seem to be fucking <em> competing </em> in being the biggest assholes and Hissrad wants to drown them all in the Boeric Ocean and go home, as if he has one.<br/><br/>Six years. His reports are dark, bitter things; he curses and questions, he writes like a Tal-Vashoth, a fucking <em> basra </em> untouched by the knowledge of the Qun. <em> What the fuck have you done to this place </em> , he writes. <em> What is wrong with us to create something like this? </em> Then he crumples up the paper and starts over because he <em> will </em> serve even a broken order, he will remain on the path and mend it if he has to. <em> This damned island</em>, Vasaad says and throws his sword aside, groaning. <em> You’re made of something else entirely, Hissrad, I could go home tomorrow. </em> <em><br/></em><br/>Seven years. He no longer needs a moment to feel pain or grief, he is too <em> unthinking </em> to care. People die. People will always die. There is no struggle. Finally, his mind is tempered and he is a weapon of the Qun. <em> Asit tal-eb </em> . He can endure Seheron until the higher-ups ask for his return, until he dies fighting. .   <em><br/></em></p><p>Eight years. The children in the school had died in groups. In pairs, with arms entwined in death, their bodies reaching for each other. The Tal-Vashoth bodies in the stronghold, later, reach for nothing. </p><p>What the fuck have they <em> done </em>to this place? What the fuck has he done?</p><p>They come for him - six men and their enforcer take him to the infirmary where he's placed in a room with six locks. He counts the sound of keys as the healers come and go. He counts the places on his body where it hurts, not to wallow but to keep himself from going mad. Counting grounds him, steers him away from the sickness of savages. Sometimes a saarebas kneels by his bedside and places her hands on Hissrad's wrecked leg and he flinches from the pain but says nothing. </p><p>They come for him - four re-educators and three priests wait for him outside the Viddathlok. In the background he can spot at least ten young soldiers. They're all taught that asala-taar manifests itself through violence and Hissrad has always been strong, they assume he will put up a fight. </p><p>He doesn’t. He doesn’t do anything he’s not told to and everything that he is.<br/><br/>It doesn’t matter.<br/><br/>They re-educate the crap out of him but somehow <em> he </em>remains, or something does: a faint, flickering something, a light or a darkness they could not reach. </p><p>He’s still Hissrad and they send him away; he plays the Iron Bull or maybe he wants to be him and either way, he will serve.</p><p>
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</p><p><br/><br/><b>2.</b><br/><br/>He teaches her the joy of fighting.<br/><br/>Cruel as it is, <em> absurd </em> as it is, this is what he does.<br/><br/>“Now <em> that </em> was good,” he tells her after battle. “That was excellent. The way you and Blackwall held that hill, Boss. <em> Damn</em>.” (She had sharpened Blackwall’s attacks with her magic, he had moved around her like a living shield, it had been - for lack of a better word - <em> thrilling</em>.)<br/><br/>Or:<br/><br/>“If you freeze them first, you could try slashing them across the neck with your staff, Boss. That’s <em> fun</em>.” (She tries, it <em> is</em>.)<br/><br/>And Anne grunts something back, pushes the discomfort in her own delight back into the dusty corners of her mind. If you look at it from a certain angle, fighting becomes a habit, almost a scholarly subject. This, she tells herself, this is what they do.<br/><br/>Blackwall teaches them military techniques - <em> Orlesian</em>, Iron Bull notes and says as much, leaving the Warden unusually quiet for the rest of the day. Varric shares stories from the Qunari occupation of Kirkwall, Sera from Denerim and what she recalls from the Blight there; Cassandra tutors in refined ways of withstanding magical attacks with the help of Anne’s fireballs and the others’ enthusiasm; Vivienne reluctantly but thoroughly educates them in the importance of playing up the opponents' fears.<br/><br/>They clear out a templar stronghold using mostly frost magic and daggers as the place is too cramped for arrows and battleaxes. It’s Iron Bull’s suggestion and Anne’s order and it works so well they’re both grinning at each other when it’s done. She says a few prayers under her breath as she leans over the corpses and closes their unseeing eyes, the rush of battle still tingling beneath her skin. It doesn't make it right but it makes it work.</p><p>They aid the local hunters by scouting ahead, felling bandits and lyrium smugglers and the fights are suddenly simpler, don’t immediately send her to the thin line between life and death and she wonders, <em> feverishly</em>, if this is what it's like to be Cassandra or the Iron Bull, high on their own might. </p><p>They run into a high dragon in the Hinterlands and even as they flee from it, she can feel Iron Bull’s excitement in the air between them, she can <em> taste </em> his desire to engage it in battle. Dominate it, turn its powers against it, shackle it because it’s a beast of a creature but they are its masters, they wield the power, hold the leash. Even as they run she thinks <em> one day</em>, plotting her return, plotting the course of action then. The notion makes her laugh, a strange sound twisting in her throat, but Iron Bull just looks at her and she knows that he knows <em> exactly </em> what she means.<br/><br/><br/><br/></p><hr/><p><br/><br/><br/><br/>She teaches him strength.<br/><br/>The higher-ups in Par Vollen would probably cry bitter tears if they knew that someone raised as a living weapon and brought up by tamassrans so fierce that they could snap you in half for disobedience would go to a place like Ferelden to learn a lesson about strength. But that’s just how it is.<br/><br/>Boss is, without a doubt, the toughest person he has ever met.<br/><br/>Once, he asks if she believes in the Maker and she considers it for a second - probably tired of having that question, probably ready to kick the Maker in his assumed balls - before shaking her head.<br/><br/>“Wish I did,” she says, softly and there’s a tiny stab in his chest at the sound. </p><p>She stands there, breakable and bare with the Fade itself attached to her body through no effort of her own doing, only bad luck and fate. </p><p>She stands there, a human mage dominated into reluctant submission by the southerners’ order of faith and fear, robbed of her own raw power. He’s seen it so many times by now, the way her magic swells and shivers around her, tamed and angry, nearly bursting free before she releases it. She's getting better every day, wearing down her own defenses and ignoring the costs, for the time being.<br/><br/>She stands there, a noble humbled into obedience by her own body, taught like a qunari to mind her powers, her place in the world, the dangers she is capable of. But unlike a qunari, she's supposed to think she still has a choice. It would drive him mad but it appears to barely touch her sanity.</p><p>She stands there, in all her unimpressive humanity, stubbornly placing herself between the Breach and the rest of Thedas. Without someone to lead her, for no purpose other than her idea that it’s the right thing to do. </p><p>She stands there with nothing to fall back on, no orders or gods or superiors. </p><p>It's all <em> her</em>.</p><p><br/><br/><br/><br/><b>3.</b><br/><br/>Outside the walls of Redcliffe, she falls to her knees, shaking.<br/><br/>A year, they’d kept telling her. A year without her and the world had fallen into chaos, making monsters of them all. </p><p>Magic had done that: a pitch-black hole in the fabric of time; and magic had restored it: Anne meets the gaze of a runaway Tevinter mage in the rubble of their world, touches his magic - vast, bright, <em> burning </em>- with her own and sheds a lifetime of fear in one long, ragged exhale. They had been inside time itself, she is certain of it, their powers joined around the unfathomable flow of the universe for a short moment and everything in her had responded to it, opened up. </p><p>And now she pays the price for all the grandstanding.<br/><br/>The exhaustion runs her down to her bare bones, a convulsion through her body, a shiver that makes her hands flutter, grasping at nothing. Her staff lies useless in the grass and there’s no strength left in her grip as she tries to reach for it to fasten it on her back again. Her hand remains outstretched, fingers grabbing thin air. She can hear people call for her - <em> Herald! Go help the lady herald! </em> - and in the corner of her eye she spots Sera but Iron Bull is faster.<br/><br/>“Hey, boss,” he says quietly and picks up her staff. It looks ridiculous in his hand, Anne thinks, like he’s an actor in a Chantry play using a toy sword. It brings a wry smile to her lips but the pain twists it into a grimace. “Can you walk?”<br/><br/>“In a moment.” Her voice is shaking, too, and it infuriates her. She shouldn’t have brought the spy to a showdown like this one; she can only imagine what he writes home about this, about her decision to go recruiting the weak-willed apostates that lets a Tevinter mage loose. Shit, she's willing to cosign that report at this point.<br/><br/>“Yeah, I don’t think we have a moment.” He looks around before he leans forward and places her staff in its designated sheath on her back. It’s an unpracticed and not very smooth motion but she can feel the weapon snap into position and looks down at her hands again. Still shaking, no matter how she wills them not to. “Come on, lean on me.”<br/><br/>“<em>No</em>, I-”<br/><br/>“Boss.” He extends a hand; she considers taking it but the effort seems overwhelming. “Can you even stand?”<br/><br/>“In.” Anne straightens her back, trying not to groan. “A. <em> Bit</em>.”<br/><br/>Iron Bull makes a muffled sound that sounds like a compromise between a growl and a sigh and then, <em> Andraste’s arse</em>, she feels one of his arms come around first her shoulders, then her waist as he scoops her up from the ground and starts moving. There’s a protest - hot, <em> furious </em> - at the back of her tongue but it tangles with the heavy drum of exhaustion and the absolutely ridiculous sensation of being <em> carried. </em> Not once in her life has this happened before and if she wasn’t so wrecked, she’d have something to say but the sound of approaching soldiers effectively drowns her argument. Bull slings one of her arms around his neck, lets the other one remain on his chest where she tries to hold on to the harness. </p><p>“You can hit me later,” he rumbles, a soft thunder inside her body. “But I promised Cullen to get you back to Haven in one piece.”</p><p>Anne still recalls his narrowed eyes and frustrated pace when they set up their plan of attack, an angry sort of worry lining his face and she had thought about it all the way to the castle. Nobody has ever been this concerned about her survival before, not even her family. Then again, her survival has never played even a minor part in anyone’s existence until she fell out of that Breach.<br/><br/>"As long as my mark makes it back he'll be fine." She stares at it now where it glows against Bull's thick neck, wondering but not enough to ask if it has the same feel to it as other magic. To her, it hurts more but also <em> less </em> . It carries more hollowness than sting, as though it takes rather than gives, carving out bits of her with each use. </p><p>"Yeah, I think he'd protest if the rest of you wasn't attached, boss." He sounds vaguely amused. "We’re not gonna try it."</p><p>Anne blinks, trying to focus inward, on mana and energy but her mind flutters. </p><p>That nightmare future. It had been drenched in lyrium and now everything stinks of it, a lingering ghost. Inhaling, she can sense it even here, on them both, but also other smells, ordinary smells. Steel and oil, sweat and leather and the comforting scent of dust from the road.</p><p>Inhale. Exhale. <br/><br/>Iron Bull had been singing to himself in the cell when they reached him. Same with Sera, babbling rhymes and words. It had been the worst part, Anne thinks now, seeing the people she feels responsible for half-broken, the lyrium like a plague in their bodies. It had been her fault. She’d made the choice to go to Redcliffe, to reach out to the mages; she had made the questionable decision afterwards to recruit them and she knows how it looks, knows what the aftermath will be like.</p><p>Knows it, and pushes it away for a little while yet. </p><p>“This is strange,” she mutters, eyes fixed on a distant and ever-moving spot somewhere north of Bull’s massive shoulder, a faintly neutral line of treetops and the hint of mountains. It seems rather advisable to aim for neutrality while being pressed up against someone like this. </p><p>His skin is hot, like he’s told them several times when asked about his lack of clothes, his scant armour. There’s an unfamiliar heat to it, a different texture: smooth, warm, probably much thicker than her own.<br/><br/>“Is it? I’ve carried most of the boys from the battlefield at some point.” His voice seems like it’s part of the very foundation of the earth, settling low and gritty in her ear. "Not really an option in Par Vollen unless you fight with Viddathari but here? Saves a lot of hassle."<br/><br/>“<em>S</em><em>till</em>. I’m not the kind of woman who gets picked up and carried away.”<br/><br/>“You <em> all </em> are to me, Boss.” A chuckle now, slightly out of breath, for all his supposed endurance. They’re moving quickly and she is, regardless of what he pretends, a fairly large human. At least she will be able to walk on her own, soon. She can feel her mana build up, pooling beneath her breastbone, tickling within the veins.<br/><br/>Anne shakes her head and keeps track of the soldiers around them. Sera walks in a group of foot soldiers, her face stony even now, her shoulders slumped. <em> The day you died? I ran out of arrows to make them pay. </em></p><p><em> No</em>. </p><p>Anne almost flinches at the memory, feeling a hot pang of guilt.</p><p>"You alright there?"</p><p>"I was just wallowing a bit."</p><p>"Yeah, don't do that." For a heartbeat she swears his grip of her tightens. "Everyone got out. No point in dwelling."</p><p>"That's what you do? Just march forward?"</p><p>"That's what I'm telling you to do."</p><p>She huffs an exhale, thinking that sometimes he couldn't be more of a spy if he tried, just like Leliana he dances around all topics, elusive and charming, turning confessions into questions and shuffling truths behind statements. Like Leliana he does seem like a genuinely nice person, like that's the base of operations, the matter they have used to mold them into lethal weapons.<br/><br/>Grim, when you think of it like that. Twisting kindness into blades, people into tools.<br/><br/>She doesn’t trust either of them; she trusts them both with her life. </p><p>A little while later, Bull puts her down on the ground nearing the forward camp outside Haven. It's an ungraceful motion betraying his own weariness and Anne holds his gaze for a moment, looking for other signs of injury. As if he knows she’s doing just that, he shakes his head.  </p><p>"I’m fine, Boss,” he says unceremoniously. “But it's better that you walk now. Keeping up appearances and all that."<br/><br/>“Right. Thank you.” She smooths her hands over her robes, fastens a few stray curls of her hair. “Let’s go.”</p><p>She can feel his gaze on her all the way up to the village, can sense his hand being only a short stumble away and despite herself, despite him and everything he is, she finds the idea comforting. </p><p> </p><p> </p><hr/><p>
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</p><p>With the castle at a safe distance behind them, Iron Bull finds himself with too much time on his hands and too little to <em> smash</em>. He feels the restrictions of the tiny village as the images of the mages from the castle spin around inside his skull. Raising demons. It's always <em> demons</em>. Always things crawling into your head, messing around. He has a feeling - or a fear - that for every time one of them manages to worm its way inside you, you lose something, making it easier for the next one, and the next. That would explain the madness of some mages.<br/><br/>The tavern isn’t the best place for his thoughts - too crowded, too much noise - but it’s a <em> place </em> and it’s what they have. <br/><br/>“You died for me,” Boss says and downs a whole goblet of awful wine in one go. Even her face is a grimace and she’s allegedly not afraid of mind-altering magic and Fade crap. “In that future.”</p><p>“Figures.” He drinks, too. Doesn’t even taste the mouthful, just swallows as much as he can. Some kind of Warden wine, the label had stated. It burns, but not enough.<br/><br/>One year they spend under Venatori rule, the sky shitting out demons and darkspawn by the dozen and oh, the mages are harvesting red lyrium out of living people. One damn year. Apparently there were also blood sacrifices and an archdemon.</p><p>That’s all there in a report he refuses to read.<br/><br/>“I - do you remember it?”</p><p>He’s not sure he does. He’s not sure he <em> doesn’t</em>. All he knows is that he has very thoroughly tucked away every single scrap of memory from that castle deep, deep down inside his mind. When they torture him in the future, Ben-Hassrath trying to set him straight again or the Vints trying to break him, they’ll have to dig through journeys, childhood songs, the whole mindnumbingly fucking boring Body Canto in three languages, a whole library’s worth of knowledge of military history, filthy tavern limericks and everything he’s ever learned about sex before they get to Redcliffe castle. If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s cleaning up his own head to resemble a habitable place.<br/><br/>It’s just the demons that mess that place up beyond control.<br/><br/>“Nah,” he says. “If I do, I try not to think about it.”</p><p>A year. Even if he doesn’t think about it, his mind runs the numbers and those aren’t pretty. He can cut through a group of soldiers in a couple of minutes if he has to. Clear out a building full of Tal-Vashoth in half an hour.</p><p>What the fuck has he had time to do in a year’s time, high on some demon madness?</p><p>“I wanted to say that I’m sorry I dragged you to that castle. I know you’re… uncomfortable with mages. And demons.”<br/><br/>“Mages are fine.” He shrugs. “Well, maybe not that Vint. If he already counts. Too pretty be trusted - that ass alone could turn the most hardcore agent, trust me.”</p><p>She makes a face that gets stuck somewhere in between amusement and that stumbling allusiveness she picks up sometimes when they’re alone. It’s oddly charming, probably works great on humans. Sure, it could work on him, too, had they been different kinds of people. Or well, technically he supposes it already <em> works </em> but it's just that it’s not going to happen like that and definitely not in any way that she might imagine it. <br/><br/>“I’ll protect you from the demons next time, I promise,” she says, looking at him over the rim of her mug.</p><p>He has no doubt that she could. </p><p>“My axe protects me,” he mutters, drinking and watching her expression carefully. She’s calmer, which he supposes is good. When a mage worries about magic, you know it’s <em> bad</em>. "It has blood grooves."</p><p>The clatter of sparring soldiers and the dull noise of their accompanying chatter from outside the tavern bleeds into the scene. Boss furrows her brow; it doesn't require any training to understand she wants company to keep her thoughts in check. Truth is he shares that sentiment completely and she was <em> there</em>. That counts for something. </p><p>"Tell me more about the blood grooves." She pours another drink for herself, then for him, leaning back in her seat. “Or, I don’t know, battleaxes?”</p><p>Bull nods. “Yeah, can do.”<br/><br/><br/></p><p> </p><p><br/><b>4.</b><br/><br/>They close the Breach and it’s too <em> easy </em> .<br/><br/>Anne feels the other mages and the stray templars engulf her with their powers, burning to bright, so terrifyingly strong together. She feels the readiness of the soldiers’ blades and arrows, the steady hand on her shoulder and Cassandra, nodding at her.<br/><br/>The Fade roars at her, smashes against her borders but Anne remembers not to be afraid, not to hold back and she counts to ten, gathers the energy from the other mages against her own and then, finally, she releases the full force of her own magic and whatever powers that she’s borrowed from beyond the Veil, thinking <em> this is the end of me</em>.<br/><br/>Scrambling to her feet afterwards, she knows that she’s been right.<br/><br/><br/><br/></p><hr/><p><br/><br/><br/>They close the Breach and Boss is quiet all the way back.<br/><br/>Quiet and solemn, her entire posture clenched like a fist. He can see fear in her for the first time since she approached him, some months ago now. Fear, faint but persistent, dancing behind that wall in her eyes that have begun to part, too, at least for him, at least when she's tired. </p><p>And that, right there, makes him tired in turn because it reminds him of why he's here. <em> Get close to the Inquisitor. Earn her trust. </em> All those reasonable, uncomplicated matters of the Qun that had begun to crumble already during his first year in Orlais, complicated in parts by all the intricate, complex patterns of old human nations, in parts by all the intricate, complex patterns of the hedonism that lies in personal freedom, however acted. It had shattered even further as he barged in, all instinct and no sense, to save Krem's life and the realisation that no, <em> fuck </em> no, he doesn't regret it even if he tries. The realisation that if he actually <em> earns </em>this woman’s trust like this, using only a bare minimum of his training, he might not want to betray it. Not for his people, not for the Qun, not for the betterment of society. The dark claws of fear that hook into him at that notion taste of madness and savagery and exile. </p><p>"Talk to me," Boss says suddenly and he slows down to allow her to catch up. He clears his mind. </p><p>"You've had enough of revered silence for one day, huh?"</p><p>A flash of irritation in her gaze. There's such a temper in her, he knows. Well-managed but <em> there</em>, undeniably. Fallen tree trunks ending up as chips and servants complaining about crashed vials of <em> Andraste knows what sort of potions</em>. It's endlessly tempting to rub against it, provoke or soothe, work her up a little. But not tonight. He had watched her at the Breach, had watched them all pile their wounded faith and hopeful dreams on her as the tear in the sky closed and she stood tall. </p><p>"I would even prefer to debate the Qun," she says, glancing back at the group of soldiers that walk behind them. Ahead they have Cassandra and Solas engaged in a lively discussion. </p><p>"Damn. How about we talk about, uh, I don’t know - Varric's novels," Bull suggests, feeling particularly unwilling to dig into the foundations of his existence on an afternoon when he's watched this woman close the fucking Fade and realised he doesn't want to write about it at <em> all, </em> wants to keep her out of it entirely except for the notion <em> leave her alone, stay where you are. </em>His loyalty to the Qun has seen better days - years - for sure. </p><p>That draws a brief chuckle out of her. "<em>You </em> read Varric's novels?"</p><p>"Everyone reads those. Come on, it's not like you <em> didn't </em> devour them in the Circle of Ostwick. Passed them on between the mages."</p><p>"Ha!" she says, proving him right. </p><p>If he didn't want to play nice he’d point out that she's blushing. Now he just saves the moment in his head, marking it as a pretty damn satisfying detail. </p><p>"So, Belladonna or Jevlan?" He lowers his voice just a notch, glancing at the way her freckles seem to light up against the flushed tone of her skin. "If you have to choose.”</p><p>"Donnen actually," she counters, recovering quickly at least. Not for the first time he thinks she's probably a fair bit more experienced than she wants to reveal. A true noble in that respect then, for all her magic. Oh, the things he could do to that restraint. "He's at least interesting."</p><p>"Uh-huh."</p><p>"What's Qunari romance novels like then? Full of invasions?" Her posture has relented and her voice is calmer, openly entertained. Arching her eyebrows she looks at him. "Oh, wait, don’t tell me - a torrid love affair between a dreadnought and a city wall? Their love couldn’t take the pressure."</p><p>Bull laughs. </p><p>"Not far off. Well, actually there <em>are</em> no romance novels unless you count the cautionary tales. Two qunari fall in love, one of them dies horribly or both of them die because they choose each other over the right way." It would almost be sad if it wasn’t also quite comical to remember this shit. Vasaad would read them out loud during endless night watch hours, all the moral stories of the community and necessary hardships for the good of all. "Come to think of it, a true Qunari romance would be between a man and his Path."</p><p>"Right." Boss smiles now, that easy smile she has with him sometimes, the one that makes him forget that they're not friends no matter how easy it would be to be hers. She also looks around, likely assessing the distance. There's still a stretch of road untraveled and the people walking with them still don’t know how to look at her without fainting. "Tell me a Qunari bedtime story then."</p><p>"Uhh, you got any idea how many blows I've taken to my head in the thirty years since I last heard one?"</p><p>"Hey, it's not like I'll be able to tell if you're just shitting me, Bull."</p><p>"Wanna bet?"<br/><br/>A nod, as though accepting a formal duel in combat. “You are <em> on</em>.”</p><p><br/><br/><br/><b>5.<br/></b><br/><br/>Back in Haven she gathers them like a farmer would a flock of sheep. Mark aching, flaring up angrily as she walks around to see that they're well, that they have ale and food and, if she's honest, that they still look at her the same way. </p><p>Many of them don't, of course. </p><p>The streak of worship intensifies, harsh and heavy, and the thread of wonder runs like a beacon through them all. <em> She was sent by the Maker, mark my words. </em>It’s the reason she had kept to Bull’s company, immensely relieved to see nothing but the good-humoured neutrality reflected in him. </p><p>But they can worship her as long as they survive. The past few months have taught her that, spelled it out in blood. They can raise her up to where they need her to be, if they live to see another day.<br/><br/>It’s all so <em> fragile</em>, carrying them, watching her own decisions and actions mirrored in their faces, their numbers, their losses. She has not asked for this; it’s hers all the same. <br/><br/>When the attack comes, she feels like she’s been waiting all day, ever since the Breach soared shut above their heads and the mark remained.<br/><br/>She’s led them into another trap.<br/><br/><br/></p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
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</p><p><br/>The Iron Bull <em> really </em>hates fighting among civilians. </p><p>First of all it’s fucking the balance right away, messing up the scales.<br/><br/>It's on his record, one of those things that set him apart from the Antaam, one of the few things about him he finds solace in when he thinks about losing his way and ending up a rabid animal in the jungles. He can't stand hurting innocents, avoids it - withholds assaults, delays missions - right up to the point of refusing orders.<br/><br/>Second of all, it cramps his style. Destroys it, even. He’s like a druffalo in a glass house trying to get around in Haven with all the civilians running around, all the farmers that have picked up a sword because they are scared of their Maker’s wrath unless they line up behind the Herald of Andraste. </p><p>"Looks like the celebratory drinks will have to wait," he says when he catches up with Boss.</p><p>She glances quickly at him and for a second her expression is unreadable, then he recognises it as grim determination. </p><p>"I've saved the rest of that disgusting wine in my pack." She nods over her shoulder. "You live, you get to finish it.”<br/><br/>“Great motivational speech there, Boss.”<br/><br/>“It’s all I have right now.” Her gaze moves over the village as they make their way through it, heading for the gates.<br/><br/>“Hey,” Bull says, struck by the urge to tell her things will be alright. Which they won’t. This place can’t withstand anything, definitely not a full-on force and they have no numbers to speak of, nothing to mobilize against armies of trained templars high on lyrium. In this, at least, he’s with the despairing commander of the forces.<br/><br/>“Yeah, let’s just - <em> shit</em>, I don’t know.” She pushes ahead, staff waving in her hand and those red curls like a fire around her.<br/><br/>He follows.<br/><br/>He still follows an hour later, after a makeshift escape plan and a display of human leadership - reluctant at first, fairly impressive once they get their shit together. Once <em> she </em> gets her shit together.<br/><br/>“I need you to run when I give the word,” Boss tells them at the trebuchet they had used before, when there was still time or they had pretended as much. </p><p>"Herald, please-" Cassandra interrupts but she's a soldier, knows when a cause is lost. </p><p>"Yes, yes," the Vint mutters, his mouth a disapproving grimace.  </p><p>Bull says nothing. </p><p>"You have your orders," Boss says, her eyes fixed on him, as if he's the weakest link in her chain or simply the least trusted.<br/><br/>Maybe he is. He can’t even say if he’s here fighting as a Ben-Hassrath, a Qunari agent deep in the heart of a powerful organisation or an opportunistic mercenary leader joining a cause as a last resort, a final push to sever the ties that has been loosened over the years. <br/><br/>He thinks of shitty plans and weak-willed fucking templars orchestrated by some self-serving asshole at the top, thinks of the whole damn south and all their faults; he thinks <em> stupid mage </em> as he feels the warm rush of her protective magic flood him before he can tell the enemy knocks the breath out of her.<br/><br/>This is about her having a semblance of a shot to survive and she makes it about <em> them </em> and it twists, turns inside his head.<br/><br/>No, he thinks. No, he’ll go back for her.</p><p>He's Ashkaari, he wants to help, wants them to tell him how.<br/><br/>He’s Hissrad, all brutal anger and some kind of instinct - raw, animalistic - telling him to throw reason aside in favour of what? One single person’s fate. That is not the priorities of a civilized man, how could it be? </p><p>He's Iron Bull and he has his order but he's going back because Iron Bull would.</p><p>But of course they're not. </p><p>Cassandra looks at him, just <em> looks </em> at him, her mouth soft and open and he looks away, kicks his boot into a templar corpse, stirring up a cloud of red dust. <br/><br/>“I have not come to this awful bloody country only to be killed by an oversized <em> Qunari</em>,” the mage snaps, tugging uselessly at Bull’s arm. “Move. Now.”<br/><br/>“She's a mage," he adds, his tone softer now. He's trying to convince himself as much as he's trying to convince them, likely more. "An excellent one at that. Well, for an unrefined mage prisoner, at least. She <em> could </em>actually make it out."</p><p>When the mountain collapses just as they've made it to an underground passage, Bull drags Cassandra inside with him, clenching his teeth over the barbaric rage he wishes he could unleash.<br/><br/><em> Ataash varin kata, </em> he thinks - in the end lies glory - and wishes he still believed it.<br/><br/></p><p><br/>---<br/><br/></p><p> </p><p>Neither of them has chosen war. In the end, they choose so very little.<br/><br/><br/><br/></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry about the word count. :/ The slow burn kink is strong with this one and nobody ever kiss under 20K.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Interlude: Threnodies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>They walk for seven days.</p>
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</p><p>For seven days they walk across the mountains, braving the wilderness in search of hope. It feels like something out of her grandfather's library back in Ostwick, a tale full of adventure and hardship. <br/><br/>At first Anne merely sleeps. Uneasy and in great pain but she sleeps and they wait. While she recovers - she learns later - the soldiers, a few of Leliana's agents and all of the Chargers led by the Iron Bull dig out a dozen survivors along the way and a group of scouts establish that the road ahead as passable and unlikely to hold ambushes. <br/><br/>Then, on the first day, the one following the eve when she wakes up, they begin.<br/><br/>The roads are lined with mud and as sunlight melts all the snow coats of the trees, the green unfolds. Anne walks slowly but she <em> walks </em> and the rest of them pretends to keep her pace without making an effort to, like there’s nothing to it. <br/><br/>They talk about making it out, about surviving, like it's both expected and an utter absurdity laced with divine intervention. None of it is wrong, exactly. <br/><br/>They make a new home at the edge of every evening, put up their fires, send out their scouts and share their food like the first flocks of wandering people back when the world was new. They care for their wounded with gentle hands and when night falls, they say their prayers, hoping that the hopeless destruction they’ve witnessed bears the mark of a benevolent god. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>2.</b>
</p><p>“Be their guide,” Solas says. <br/><br/>Anne swallows a protest, similar to the one she had said to Mother Giselle when she spoke about how their trials now seem ordained, their Herald’s actions miraculous.<br/><br/>But he’s different. It’s <em> different</em>, as though he nearly speaks her language but a variation of it, leaving endless stretches between them completely barren of familiarity.<br/><br/>She tries to feel his magic sometimes, reaching out to get a sense of it - an old trick that nobody has officially taught her but she reckons most mages do the same. Parsing your way through the fabric of another mage's weave of mana, of power, looking for the spots where you connect and break apart. <br/><br/>Vivienne is fierce, her magic built around her like an enormous tower of might. Imposing, impressive, difficult to touch. <em> Like she's the most dangerous thing in the room </em> , Bull had said once out on the Storm Coast and Anne could tell Vivienne had adored him for it even if she had made a knowing face at Anne, saying <em>clever boy</em> under her breath.  <br/><br/>Dorian is guarded, too, but warm and light underneath the extravagant display. He's a far better mage than most she has encountered who use that kind of cover, far more talented than her,  better trained - in his case it appears to be mostly a diversion - pretend you're all bluster and no one will notice your victory or earnestness.<br/><br/>With Solas, all that she can sense is how firm his powers are, how solid, as though they are running between him and the ground itself. There’s no way in, she wonders how there can be a way out. He is the most solitary creature she has ever met. <br/><br/>“Be their guide,” he says, meaning something she doesn’t understand.<br/><br/></p><p>
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</p><p><b>3.</b><br/><br/><br/>Anne feels a steadying hand on her elbow as she nearly trips over a snow-covered stone with a pointy tip grazing the sole of her boot.<br/><br/>“Careful, my lady.” Blackwall offers a brief, friendly smile.<br/><br/>There’s a slight discomfort in her to be in his presence and she can’t say why. Perhaps because she doesn’t know how to counter his pleasantries, perhaps because it is so clear that he seeks something from her that she has no idea how to offer. She can see it in several of them, a dull flickering hope behind the casual words, a sharp edge to their jokes. It’s strongest in him; she judges him harshly for it. Too harshly, certainly. His inducement is merely of a kind that unsettles her.<br/><br/>“How's your arm?” she asks. He’d sustained several injuries getting the villagers to safety and she knows he’s been to the healers at least twice.<br/><br/>“I’ll live. It’s not important. After Haven, everyone will have their focus elsewhere, my lady.” He sounds <em> relieved</em>. “People flocked to our banner already, after this they will be even more eager to fight for the Herald of Andraste.”<br/><br/>She pulls her coat tighter around her shoulders, looking down at her feet as they keep walking. Steep uphill then a short slope broken by another path pointing up over a hill; her legs ache and the bruises along her sides and back are stinging, low and persistent despite her best elfroot salve.<br/><br/>“So,” Blackwall continues. “Tell me honestly: are you what they say you are? Andraste’s chosen?”<br/><br/>“How can I <em> possibly </em> know that?” Anne responds, tone sharper than intended so she softens it, wills it lighter. “But no, I don’t think so.”<br/><br/>Blackwall doesn’t seem too perturbed by her mood, he keeps walking by her side, gesticulating.<br/><br/>“You are to your men.” He nods towards a group of scouts ahead of them. “And to the people in the villages that hear about this. Their faith is a leash, and your Inquisition has taken hold of it. Without you, they’d be consumed with despair. We all would.”<br/><em><br/>Your </em> Inquisition.  She bites back a handful of retorts that are plain nasty, then another few that are too pathetic. <br/><br/>“Corypheus is a real threat.” Anne uses her staff as a walking stick, trying to refrain from using her magic to soothe her aching limbs. It’s a casual use of it that she’s taught to avoid, a needless waste of resources that’s considered <em> vulgar </em> . So far she’s slipped in a lot of her hard-earned assessments but this one lingers. <em>Yes, and such a good little mage you are.</em> “He won’t be defeated by hope alone.”<br/><br/>“You are right, of course.” Her companion smiles again, apologetic this time and with a hint of sadness. “I’ve taken enough of your time, my lady.”<br/><br/>A while later she can see him engaged in a conversation with Sera that seems to amuse them both greatly, their faces open and bright, a chuckle emerging from the man that just told Anne she has to be a beacon of faith to the world. It’s small-minded of her to compare but she does.<br/><br/>She keeps to herself for the rest of the day, eats quickly and excuses herself early only to spend hours awake in her tent, staring at the place where her roof would be, had she still been in Haven, at the Circle, in Ostwick beside Evelyn, listening to her sister's rambling stories of explorers and Grey Wardens, of dragons and Deep Roads, her increasingly desperate promises to always keep Anne safe.<br/><br/>She isn’t.<br/><br/>The night is full of uneasy sleep, of shapeless terrors and swirling tendrils of dreams reaching for her, pulling her under.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><b>4</b>.<br/><br/><br/>“Tell me,” she says to Varric as they stop to water the horses and themselves before braving a section of the road that their maps paint as trying, perhaps even slightly impossible. It renders her reckless enough to venture into questions she doesn't really want answered. “You’re clever <em> and </em> you’re a writer. You know a good story. What do you make of all this? Do you think I’m sent by some higher power to help you all?”<br/><br/>Anne empties her water skin and feels like a child, yearning for the right words of encouragement, but not wanting to ask outright.<br/><br/>Cullen has just revealed to her the number of soldiers still missing after the attack on Haven and it has left a wound inside her, outlined by raw edges and that persistent grief that never leaves her any more. So many of them had arrived only days earlier, fleeing from misery and war or embarking on a pilgrimage of practical, dedicated faith and the Inquisition welcomed them and offered them death. <br/><br/>She needs someone to rage against it all, someone to shake it up and tell her she must stop playing war, hand these matters over to a proper general and go back to the Free Marches. <br/><br/>Varric looks at her, narrowing his eyes as he turns away slightly.<br/><br/>"Shit, this is going to be awkward," he says and it <em> is</em>; she wishes she hadn't asked.</p><p><br/><br/><br/><b>5</b>.<br/><br/>They make camp for the night near a stream and Anne walks down to it alone, kneeling in the snow to catch her reflection in the water.<br/><br/>Vivienne had been right in this, too - she does look <em> particularly </em> ghastly right now with her hair unwashed and unkempt, the curls full of dust and gore and straying from all attempts at fastening them, her skin pale and sallow. There are dark circles under her eyes as well as streaks of red in them and splashing icy cold water everywhere only gets her so far. She does it anyway, stubbornly.<br/><br/>It’s better than nothing, it will have to <em> do.</em><br/><br/>Cullen and Cassandra find her just as she attempts to dry her hair with her woolen shawl, dripping water across her chest and legs.<br/><br/>“Oh, you’re-” Cullen begins but Cassandra cuts him off by stepping closer. <br/><br/>“Herald, we were hoping we could finish our report on Haven later. After supper, perhaps?”<br/><br/>Anne meets her own gaze in the reflection, forces the most persistent anger and frustration to disappear behind plain old exhaustion. Always a safer bet and one that requires less explanations; they’re all exhausted by now, dragging their worry around. She rearranges her defenses and pushes to her feet.<br/><br/>“Of course,” she says.<br/><br/>“Are you well?” Cassandra asks when they head back to camp and Anne smiles, raking a hand through her wet hair, feeling the mark sparkle against it. Through the layers of time and forgetfulness and the twisted sort of longing the Circle had brought, she grasps for her mother’s advice. <em> Fold your emotions like one would fold a piece of cloth, dear. The foulest one at the bottom, out of sight. </em> <em><br/></em><br/>“Never better,” she says.  </p><p>
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  <b>6.</b>
</p><p>Iron Bull finds her outside her tent at night, under a clear sky of constellations with names she once knew by heart, star by star. It had seemed important, <em>rebellious</em> in its superstitious origin.</p><p>She had gone looking for him that first night when she woke up, back when the soldiers had knelt before her and she had felt like crying; for all the uncertainties the Iron Bull offers, he never makes her want to cry. He had been sitting in the outskirts of their makeshift home, as usual separate from the others but close enough to observe, and it had felt like he'd been waiting for her then. A curious, almost intimate expectation. <em>Please don't sing</em>, she had said, her voice a crooked whisper but he hadn't laughed, like she thought, merely looked at her and nodded. <em>No singing, Boss</em>. <em>I</em> <em>only sing in Taverns.</em></p><p>They hadn't talked for long, barely at all, but she had thanked him for his efforts in Haven, for getting out when she ordered him to. He <em> had </em> laughed then, a strange laugh that had seemed more tired than joyous and more like a mask covering up something darker. <em> It's such a human thing, thanking someone for following orders</em>, he had said and there had been something to his voice that still remains at the edge of her memory. It had resembled doubt and it had taken her by surprise; she had thought, stupidly, that the Iron Bull doesn't harbour such emotions. </p><p>Now he seems his usual self, whoever that is. </p><p>"Come on, let's walk a bit," he says and sets off, looking back only briefly. She follows, thinking he's always doing this, offering her suggestions that are actually statements, an invitation that he knows or counts on her to accept. It’s a striking difference from the rest of her life where she’s asked without preparation about maps and routes and troops, where people look at her and see someone who can tell them what the Maker has in store as well as come up with a sound strategy for keeping a whole horde of refugees safe.  </p><p>He doesn’t ask but in return he never demands anything from her either, he doesn’t <em> take</em>.<br/><br/>For that reason alone, she’d follow him. </p><p>Tonight he walks much slower than he usually does, yet she has trouble keeping up. They say her injuries weren’t as bad as could be expected, say <em> you were lucky, Herald </em> ; they don’t give her details but she will convince the healers to fill her in once they - <br/><br/><em> Yes? </em></p><p>She refuses her own thought, challenges it. Once they - <em> what? </em> Once they reach the mythical place from the elvhen children’s tale Solas had told her some days ago? Once they starve to death in the mountains because their fearless leader has led them to a bottomless ravine and they finally run out of food?<br/><br/><em> No</em>.<br/><br/>That set of fears is not for now, she decides as the pain from her ribs shoots through her again. They’re mended - she had mended them herself in the cave she woke up in, in small portions, saving her energy for potential enemies - but they ache with a throbbing pain that comes and goes. Even with the best healers a broken bone takes time, she is no stranger to this logic yet these circumstances scrape all patience off her frame, leaving her in a constant state of restlessness.<br/><br/>“Hey, Bull-” She makes a grimace and he comes to a halt to let her catch up. <br/><br/>“Sorry, Boss.” His gaze travels over her for a second. There’s an intensity to it that breaks through the more casual approach and she feels slightly dizzy at the notion. All the power in him - whenever it’s focused on something it has such a pull, such a <em> presence </em> that she loses her momentum and when it’s directed at <em> her </em> , she thinks she could drown if she let herself.<br/><br/>Taking a deep breath, she keeps walking, shortening her steps. <br/><br/>"Any reason you bring a collection of axes?" She nods towards the small arsenal of weapons hanging from his harness on his back. <br/><br/>He nods, grinning a little at her. "Yeah, you’ll see soon."<br/><br/>She pauses again. Her mind aches with these past days and their quiet terrors and now she can hear Cullen and Cassandra in her thoughts, gasping in disbelief at the sight of the Herald of Andraste setting off into the forest alone with a well-armed Qunari spy. Iron Bull stops too and looks at her. Painted against the trees that are hunched under the weight of snow and the darkened path ahead of them, he is a massive creature, so firmly rooted in the world. There’s a vast unknown there, a <em> lot </em> of things she doesn’t know, secrets she’s scared to find out and yet some that has landed in her over these past few months. Familiar paths, spots of sunlight, absolute truths.<br/><br/>Such as: there are so many ways in which he could hurt her if he wanted to.<br/><br/>Such as: there is nothing in her that is afraid of him.  </p><p>"Everything alright?" he asks, his tone light but there’s curiosity there, she can trail it through the air.<br/><br/>Anne nods and continues walking. <br/><br/>The mountains offer large patches of forest unmoved by both weather and the rhythm of days and he finds them one glade where the last and quickly disappearing light keeps them company. <br/><br/>There are at least five large trees on the ground, probably broken by wind or snow or - quite likely - even the avalanche she unleashed on Haven. Nature carries the memories that are too heavy for mortals, one of her enchanters had taught them, once. That is why lands occupied by the Dalish hold so much magic. Here the forest is marked by her hand, the trees counted among her victims. Their heavy, gnarly bodies lie there scattered over each other; thick tree trunks have crushed thinner branches, the needles and foliage forming one sprawling pattern against the white.<br/><br/>Anne watches as Iron Bull lowers the axes unto a spot beside the trees. He grabs the largest - still small by his standards but she doesn't imagine the Inquisition keeps a very large stock of Qunari-sized equipment - and looks up at her. His skin gets a silvery grey tone in the dusk that surrounds them, every movement like a faint glitter. Unbidden, she recalls the feel of it, the warm leathery sensation filling out every lifeline in her palms.<br/><br/>“You’re chopping wood?”<br/><br/>“<em>We </em> are, Boss.” His grin is broad and contagious, hers probably mostly surprised.<br/><br/>“<em>I’m </em> chopping wood?”<br/><br/>"Yeah. Now, there's no reason we would do this normally. We have people for it. But it’s good work when you need to clear your head. Come here, watch this." He raises the axe over his head and smashes it down on the tree trunk that instantly snaps in half. The sound is rich and heavy, a chord in her. <br/><br/>He does it again and Anne watches, as instructed. <br/><br/>“So what, you’re just assuming I’ve never done this before in my life?” she asks when he's throwing two chunks of wood to the ground near his pack. <br/><br/>“You haven’t.” He hands her another axe - smaller and better suited for her grip; because of course he has thought about that - and watches her take hold of it, his gaze travelling up along with her arms, observing her as she focuses on the logs before her. There’s something primordial in this task, like farming the lands and gathering water, building shelter. A connection, a kinship to those who came before. "Doesn't take a Ben-Hassrath to figure that out, Boss."<br/><br/>“No,” she agrees, feeling the tool as an unfamiliar weight in her hands, its balance a new kind. "<em>Fine</em>."<br/><br/>“Just keep it steady,” Bull says. “You don’t want that in your leg. Trust me. Try to be precise and firm.”<br/><br/>"Right."<br/><br/>Her first cut splits the log almost in two, her second finishes the job. The axe tingles in her hands and she lifts it again, repeats the motion, cuts off a branch and kicks it away. She has no idea if they’re gathering firewood or just working out their issues on the unassuming logs and she doesn’t really care. She chops again, harder now and more efficiently. There’s a splint falling to the ground near her feet. She thinks about the creatures in Haven, thinks about Templars with lyrium in their eyes, their voices distorted; she chops the next tree with a low growl, seeing Corypheus face before her. <br/><br/>“Good.” Bull nods. “Keep going. If you can.”<br/><br/>He looks her over and Anne lets the axe rest in one hand, placing the other on her hip, fingers cradling one of the bruises, almost reaching the parts where her ribs had been taking the worst hits.<br/><br/>“Oh,” she says, a sudden rush of energy filling her. “I <em> can </em> .”</p><p>There’s an appreciating grin forming on his lips, his gaze lingering on her. It momentarily distracts her enough to keep her from raising the axe again. Sometimes she could swear he looks at her like a man who wouldn’t mind her attention, then most days he’s friendly and closed-off, treating her like one of the Chargers and she <em> likes </em> that, she actually really <em> does </em> . He's funny and clever and a damn good fighter - three things she can definitely find use for in wartime. Then she overhears the serving girls or the bloody lay sisters outside the chantry and there’s that sting inside her, the unpromised promise of something <em> more </em> . Even now in her worn-out misery it beckons. <em> Mages are the most sentimental creatures </em> , enchanter Lydia would say sometimes, and pour Anne or Venna or Seanna or some other young girl with a half-broken heart a nice cup of chamomile tea. <em> It takes a while to accept the boundaries of one’s life. </em> But even Lydia had her liaisons, several of them lasting over decades, so the girls always knew to take her romantic advice with a grain of salt. <em><br/><br/></em> Bull picks up his own axe and moves to a tree a bit further away, holding her gaze for a brief moment.<br/><br/>“Let’s finish this, Boss.”<br/><br/>Anne snaps out of her thoughts, forcing them away and looks down at the logs in front of her. The axe shines in the light from the emerging stars.<br/><br/>“I’m on it,” she says right before the sharp blade slides into a dry piece of wood like a knife into cheese.<br/><br/>They’re at it for a while, working in silence from opposite directions as though these trees are a proper mission, a real matter for the Inquisition - her Inquisition, apparently. Bull looks relaxed, barely making an effort while Anne exerts herself deliberately, grateful beyond words for the sweet, painful ache in her arms and shoulders, for the tingling tiredness as she smashes into the task with every scrap of frustration and fear in her body.</p><p>The sounds wood makes when it breaks and bends to her strength is exhilarating and soothing, an ancient rhythm. Her magic falls into it as well, forming itself around her physical movements as she closes her eyes and concentrates on the horde of Templars arriving over the mountains, the terrified screams of the villagers, the cold contempt of the twisted creature that had tried to remove the mark from her body.</p><p>“You might want to put that out.” Bull’s voice from behind her makes her twist, unguarded and raw. His gaze is firmly fastened on a spot in front of her, however, and she turns again.<br/><br/>It’s not until then she realises she’s made a fire.<br/><br/>“<em>Shit</em>.” She sends a wave of snow over it, watching as it fades out.<br/><br/>“Figured you needed some release.” Bull chuckles, relaxing in his stance. “Didn’t know you’d start mayhem.”<br/><br/>“Yeah,” Anne breathes, swallowing a strange bitterness at having seen him take a defensive position when faced with her, snapping into position the moment she turned around. Not even Cullen has done that during their sparring sessions, but she’s always kept her self-control in a tight leash around her commander, never daring to reveal anything but detached composure; even miles and miles away from a Circle, a Templar is a Templar and fear is fear. Iron Bull brings out a completely different side of her. She’s not sure it’s a <em> better </em> one but it's definitely bolder. “This has been a terrible week. I’m sorry.”<br/><br/>Magic still spills out of her, like she’s holding water in her hands only the rivulets are mana, shimmering and crackling as it lands on the ground. Is this the point where she loses control? Is this when the demons come for her, at long last? Her magic twists in the air, reaches out, reads the environment. No dangers, it tells her. Only her own body and then Bull’s, giving off its usual robust light. Strong, warm, <em> safe </em> . Magic doesn’t know the difference between a friend and spy, can’t tell an act of compassion from a scheme. <em> And you can? </em> Shuddering slightly, she forces it to rest, forces her body to contain it again.<br/><br/>He shrugs and his gaze is warm and startlingly <em> kind</em>. “Don’t be. I’d say you’ve earned it.”<br/><br/>Anne looks up, her eyes flickering from the blackened wood logs to Bull’s face, to his hand that rests around his axe. When she notices it, he nods towards the unburned trees.<br/><br/>“We should bring as much firewood as we can carry. Save the soldiers some trouble.” He walks up to his pack and fills it, then turns to her again. “Feeling better there?”</p><p>She nods, still slightly overwhelmed.<br/><br/>Then, as they head back towards the camp, she glances sideways at him. He’s carrying half the forest, she’s carrying herself and her staff.<br/><br/>“I needed this.”<br/><br/>“I know.” He grins. <em> Definitely </em> smug but not entirely, there’s a shade of what looks like concern there, too, and he doesn’t seem to bother hiding it. It leaves a sound in its wake, soft and brittle.<br/><br/>“Thank you,” she says and means it, more than she can say, more <em> exact </em> than the words can be. <br/><br/>“Sure.” He looks like he’s shrugging behind the firewood. “Anytime, Boss.”</p><p>
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</p><p><br/><b>7.</b> <b><br/><br/></b></p><p>On the seventh day they find Skyhold.<br/><br/>In retrospect, it might have been the eight. Or eleventh. Afterwards they will alter everything that doesn’t make a good enough story, strip it of unnecessary banality; afterwards the griefs and joys will swell and vanish as fits the narrative and details matter very little at that point.<br/><br/>Seven they will say. And speak of how they saw it - how <em> she </em>saw it - in the distance, the stones reaching for the skies; they will speak of the defenses encircling it, the way it seems cut out from the ground itself, a part of the grit and grass as much as it’s a part of the clouds above. </p><p>The Herald, they will say. She led us here. That was before she even became the Inquisitor. </p><p>Now she is.</p><p>The sword is heavy in her hands, the steel cool against her skin but the cheers from the crowd feels like fire.</p><p>“Your leader! Your Herald! Your <em> Inquisitor</em>!” </p><p>She remains on the stairs for a long time, not daring to walk down to the soldiers and servants out of fear they might fall to their knees around her.<br/><br/>When she finally does, she seeks refuge among the old training dummies and rubble from what must have been an infirmary or an armoury before time and battles broke it apart. She squats down to look at some old painting - a man on a horse, a woman looking at him with awe - that must have fallen from the wall as it crumbled.<br/><br/>His footsteps are familiar to her by now, heavy and certain, always with a purpose.<br/><br/>"<em>Inquisitor</em>, huh?" Iron Bull says but he looks at her like she's still Anne Trevelyan, a moderately talented and deeply unlucky mage from Ostwick; perhaps he sees that woman more clearly than anyone ever has. "Guess you have the fortress for it."</p><p>“Looks like it.” She rises to her full length - which is never as imposing in front of him as it used to be in front of the young mages at the Circle. "I'm going to give everyone the rest of the day off, but expect an early morning tomorrow." </p><p>"You got it."</p><p>Anne wants to <em> linger</em>, wants to find something to say that doesn't involve revealing her own weaknesses in the face of all this - her terror at accepting the title she’s dreaded for months, her confusion after Haven, her dread at the thought of what their future holds. Today has made her feel like all of her outlines  as well as every single boundary between herself and the world are caving in; the sheer vulnerability in that makes her gaze drop to the ground. There’s a promised drink at the back of her memory, a casual <em> if you survive this, we’ll celebrate</em>, but not tonight. Not even when he pulls the remains of the disgusting wine from Redcliffe - <em>fuck</em>, Redcliffe, her mind immediately snaps to attention and starts wondering if the Red Templars have spread far, if they've established themselves somewhere, perhaps <em>there</em> - from his pocket and hands it over, not even then does she suggest a drink and some company. <br/><br/>Nobody <em> sees </em> her the way he does and sometimes the price is simply too high for that kind of thing.<br/><br/>And nobody knows this better than the Iron Bull.<br/><br/>He lets her rant a bit about the state of the buildings, lets her mutter about how many days it will take the healers and herself to restock the potions supply after their trek through the Frostback Mountains, lets her just kick childishly at the grass when she can’t be arsed to form words. He doesn’t engage her in conversation, doesn’t stop her when she’s finally removing herself from the scene. The only thing he does, arms folded across his chest, is regarding her silently. <br/><br/>"Hey, Boss?" he calls when she’s turned her back on him. </p><p>"Yes?" At first she stares straight ahead, determined, then she lets her gaze flutter back, meet his. “What?”</p><p>"It's damned impressive." He nods at the towers and his voice shifts slightly, barely noticeable. Later she will determine that it’s a mere misinterpretation. "Suits you."</p><p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for letting me know you're reading this and thank you for reading it in the first place. I'm having way too much fun with these two dorks. :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Vintage: Warden Riordan (Skyhold)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>She's turning into an idea and he figures she must hate it.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So hey, thanks for reading. And thanks for letting me know that you do, that means a lot.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>"Have you somehow gotten <em> worse </em> at blocking, Krem?" </p><p>Bull looks at his lieutenant who is currently sprawled on the ground.</p><p>"You know me, working my way down from the top, Chief," Krem mutters, a bit of wounded pride at having lost again, but Bull knows he’s mostly just panting from having had the breath knocked out of him. <em> Again</em>.<br/>
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It’s not time to be nice just yet, however.<br/>
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"You wish. With that lazy right hand and slow feet of yours you'll be working on learning how to walk again when someone bashes your head in." Bull holds out his hand, waits.</p><p>Krem coughs, reaching for his weapon and shield that he had managed to lose all hold off as he fell. </p><p>"Tevinter techniques," comes the retort. "We wait and observe, looking for a weakness and then-"</p><p>"Then you get your asses kicked to the demony edge of Thedas." Bull drags the Vint to his feet, slapping one hand down on his shoulder. </p><p>They're interrupted in their sparring by loud voices from the ramparts just above them, drowned in the rustle of  clothes and armour which turns out to be Boss and her commander, talking wildly.</p><p>Krem shoots him an amused glance and Bull sharpens his ears. He may have stopped - <em> when did you even start, Hissrad? </em> - actively trying to find angles to work with here to receive more intel, but if one walks right up to him, he's as curious as anyone. </p><p>Cullen says something inaudible, all of it spoken in notes of soft exasperation. </p><p>“Well then, why <em> are </em> we accepting raw recruits?” Nothing soft in Boss’s voice, it's sharp and high-pitched. “Are we also taking in every child showing magical talent now that the Circles have fallen? Because we certainly <em> could</em>, I can just arrange them into a shield of meat and see where their magic goes when they’re attacked. You're a Templar, you know how much fun <em> that </em> would be.”<br/>
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Damn, she’s in a <em> mood</em>.<br/>
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“Inquisitor, I can assure you that we do everything to offer these recruits proper training.” Cullen’s terse, too, but still all kinds of polite. Bull has heard him insult people on a serious level without ever dropping his formal tone. He’s like a tamassran, quiet and lethal, preparing destruction.</p><p>"How long until they can actually defend a target then? Because until they can they are useless to us." She's managed to get her temper back under control again, Bull can tell. He can't see from where he stands, but he guesses her cheeks are flushed by now, her appearance disheveled - she's very easily angered by things she feels inferior at, which include all versions of military or strategic planning - and her mouth slightly open, ready to attack. </p><p>Bull listens as the traces of their conversation die, when the voices move further away, out of earshot and into one of the many unused rooms up there. Last thing he hears is a door slamming shut. </p><p>"Her Worship thinks recruits come fully trained?" Krem shakes his head, an age-old nod between soldiers, a simple bait for anyone who's ever suffered under someone else's command.</p><p>But Bull doesn't bite. </p><p>"Too many newcomers at the same time," he says. "Heard the commander and Red whine about it last night in the tavern, too. <em> Not </em> her fault."</p><p>Krem gives him a long, searching glance. "Of course, Chief. Didn't mean anything by it."<br/>
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*</p><p><br/>
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</p><p>"So, Boss." He approaches her the following day when she's down in what must have been a garden, once. Now it’s mostly tufts of grass and broken clay. “When you've got a second, there's something I wanna show you.”<br/>
<br/>
“Mmmh.”  </p><p>She doesn't look up, her attention seems to be devoted to turning over a patch of soil, muttering spells under her breath. That's new. She's been taught to use magic sparsely - he's heard her discuss it at length with Solas - and not habitually. So he guesses she’s fretting, overextending herself, trying to compensate in every way she knows how. Judging by the expression on her face when she turns around she doesn’t sleep much, if at all, there’s a hollowness to it, to her. There’s a tug in his chest at the sight, only made worse by the way her mouth twitches as she speaks. </p><p>It’s the look of Seheron, of being smashed against its shores. Again and again, not knowing when it will stop.</p><p>“We’ve made contact in the Fallow Mire.” Her voice is tight around the words. “The reports suggest a unit of our soldiers have been captured. It’s a priority.”<br/>
<br/>
So it begins, he thinks. Now that they’ve got official power, they will be an official target. Boss in particular.<br/>
<br/>
“Okay. We’ll go to the bog. Make sure to pack extra boots.”<br/>
<br/>
"Cullen says our soldiers might've been taken hostage to get my attention." She seems to speak more to the soil than to Bull. </p><p>"Sounds about right," he answers, figuring the ground won't and she seems to want answers.  </p><p>"Right?" There's a gash in her composure when she turns to look at him. "Nothing about that is <em> right</em>."</p><p>He wonders what they trained her for in the Circle. <em> Knows </em> that whatever they trained him for in Par Vollen it hadn’t prepared him for Seheron, for command, for sending his men into fire and poison, carrying their corpses out afterwards. All of that he had to do himself - do <em> to </em>himself. Wreck his own resistance apart, cross his own boundaries. Vasaad had helped. A hopeless firebrand with no patience in his body but there had been a light in him, a kindness so robust it withstood even Seheron. Long after Hissrad had turned to stoic endurance and stiffened rage, Vasaad had been there, dragging smiles and hard-earned jokes out of him. </p><p>Her eyes are dark and unreadable for a moment, like he’s staring into a creature from the Void, then they shift back into their usual form while she runs a hand over her forehead, into her hair. Her fingers tremble. </p><p>“<em>Hey </em> ,” he says, firmly. “Talk to me.”<br/>
<br/>
“I’m preparing potions.” She nods towards the sad excuse for a garden again, kneeling down to rummage through it at what seems to be random, but who’s he to say what a mage can do with some pent-up frustration and two hands. “We ran out of everything in the mountains - I - there are <em> supposed </em> to be healers here. Cullen sent for them but some got delayed since everything gets delayed because of the bleeding lack of passable <em> roads </em> and - we can’t fight through a damn <em> bog </em> without potions! <em> Shit</em>.” <br/>
<br/>
She jerks away, sucking angrily at one of her fingers that bleeds, tiny little drops forming at its tip when she looks at it. Then she heals it, wordlessly, until the wound disappears into her skin. It’s fascinating to observe so closely. Between Dalish and Boss, not to mention the other mages present at Skyhold, Bull has learned more about magic over the past few years than he did during thirty years as a Qunari. Just these months since joining the Inquisition he’s developed a strange capacity to tell the southern mages apart just by how they fight, what sort of impact they leave. </p><p>Vivienne’s grand and restrained, like a magnificent caged beast you’d never want to wake. Solas’s is really way too smooth - Bull finds it uncanny, but also strangely pleasant in that it never <em> bothers </em> him, unlike most mages with their sparkles and shit. It’s very gently <em> there</em>, no fuss. Dorian fights like a storm - intense, indomitable, <em> lush</em>, if that’s a way to describe magical energy. Bull decides that it is. It feels both benevolent and dangerous and he makes mistakes - his swearing and half-assed healing spells give him away - but he can afford it. Boss is different, more like Solas, and it might be the Fade in her or something else, but she’s more quiet, the mark she leaves not as noticeable. <br/>
<br/>
"I'm a mediocre healer," Boss says. She’s begun to gather herbs now, producing a bowl and assorted pouches from her pack. "Apart from this… herbology. This I'm really skilled at. But battlefield healing is like I don't know, reading ancient languages. I was going to specialise in it, once. Seems like I should have, considering. That would have been useful, unlike... <em>Well</em>. Back then they told me it was my best chance of getting to work outside of the Circle. Have my own life, I suppose."</p><p>He nods, wondering if she'll continue. She usually doesn't, not after a first near-blurted story or assessment. Then she typically catches herself, remembers who he is.  </p><p>"But I changed my mind." She takes some leaves from the plants and places them in the bowl. "Elemental magic is more popular for scholarly studies which is a certain way to be offered a teaching position and I… suppose I was afraid."</p><p>"To leave the Circle?"</p><p>"Yes." A sharp, dark anger slips into her tone now; it travels inward, none of it is aimed at him. “I was always afraid. Followed every rule.”</p><p>“I get that,” he says because <em> shit</em>, does he ever. </p><p>She gives an incredulous snort. “Indeed.”</p><p>Bull raises an eyebrow. “You don’t think Qunari know the fear of living outside an established system? Most of us are terrified of straying from the path and becoming Tal-Vashoth.”<br/>
<br/>
For a while she’s very quiet, just watching him.<br/>
<br/>
“<em>You </em> are,” she says eventually and it’s not a question, it’s not… anything he knows how to respond to so he doesn’t. Boss still looks at him, her eyes softening and he can <em> feel </em> it, the way her gaze hooks into hastily buried insecurities in there, the way he doesn’t retreat but allows her. Why does he do that? He blinks. “You think you’d change without the Qun.”<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t see why I would be different from other Qunari.” He no longer remembers how many Tal-Vashoths he’s killed, no longer recalls how often he has looked at one and seen a friend or an instructor or kid he grew up with. For all the failings of the re-educators to force the Qun back into his body, they had managed that. Tear his memory apart at the seams.<br/>
<br/>
“What about me?”<br/>
<br/>
Bull sighs. This is far from his favorite topic though it seems to be high up on the list for most of the southerners in the Inquisition.<br/>
<br/>
“You? You’d be a terrible Qunari, Boss. And a very quiet one. On a leash.” He hates the idea even more when spoken out loud than as a fragmented thought in his head.<br/>
<br/>
Her hands move over the herbs, almost on their own accord. He’s seen her whip up potions and poultices on her feet on several occasions already, a battlefield mage on her own terms and he always likes watching her work - she’s all quick movements, fingers made of muscle memories and instinct. Like bakers and weavers, making and unmaking the practical matters of the world. Elfroot and blue lotus, embrium and spindleweed. Stir and brew and change the course of things without even pulling at the Veil, no demons in sight. Yeah, Bull thinks, this is a nice form of magic. <br/>
<br/>
“I meant if you think I’ll go savage without Templars watching me?” Something crosses her features and she winces, stares at the elfroot for a moment. Her hands move restlessly and he waits for them to still.<br/>
<br/>
“Shit, no. I don’t,” he says. "No more than the rest of us. Probably a lot less than most."<br/>
<br/>
When he meets her gaze again he realises it has never been more open than it is now; she has never been as easy to read as she is at this moment, the obvious gratitude rendering her vulnerable. This is the way in, should he want it. If he asks the right questions now - if he had any - she’d have answers.<br/>
<br/>
“What did you have for me?” she asks instead, clearing her throat. “You said you had something?”<br/>
<br/>
“I do. When you have the time.” He looks out over the garden, at the people running around trying to make it more presentable. Earlier this afternoon he'd overheard the ambassador politely telling a few tired servants they needed to get the castle fit for all sorts of visitors at their earliest convenience. Poor bastards. “Let me know.”<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, Bull?"</p><p>He's about to leave but pauses, hands falling to his sides. “Yes?”</p><p>“Thank you.” She arches an eyebrow, a self-deprecating smirk forming. “For listening to my whinging."</p><p>"Not a problem," he tells her over his shoulder. "You pay me enough to afford it."</p><p>Even from a small distance he can hear her chuckle, crisp and contagious.</p><p><br/>
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</p><p>*</p><p> </p><p><br/>
It takes her four days to take him up on his offer; he almost grows impatient.<br/>
<br/>
Then again, she looks like she’s used the four days to sleep and eat, so it’s not time wasted. </p><p>The woman approaching him in the dusk looks less like a ghoul and more like the one who stepped out of a blizzard on the Storm Coast, telling him he'll be upfront about his reports to Par Vollen or she'll let Cassandra eat him. </p><p>“Why am I dressed like this?" She looks up at him; he stands a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest. "I got your message. From that blushing blond Chantry boy.”<br/>
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“Leonard,” Bull says, stifling a satisfied grin at the memory of said Chantry boy all nice and spent in his bed. <em>Blushing </em>isn’t the word that springs to mind but he lets it pass uncorrected.<br/>
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She gives him that particular look again, the one that is a fiery mix of irritation and amusement. “I feel like I’m in the army.”<br/>
<br/>
“You should, Boss. I mean, you kind of <em>are</em>.”<br/>
<br/>
A quick head shake. “Ugh, don’t remind me, Cullen’s having armour made for me.”<br/>
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Not a day too soon, Bull thinks. He’s spent months sitting on his hands and grinding his damn teeth when it comes to remarks about how this woman dresses in battle, thinking<em> it’s none of your damn business</em> and <em>as long as she gets the job done. </em>Sure, she’s a mage, she can draw protection from the Veil and all that but he’s fought with a lot of mages wearing sensible clothes and Boss doesn’t. She goes into battle wrapped in layers of bullshit materials - silk, fur, fucking <em>linen </em>- and insists on wearing a dress - <em>robe, Bull, it’s a perfectly normal </em>robe, she huffs in his memory - over the rest of the gear, which <em>has </em>to restrict her movements to a point where his mind hurts trying to think about it.<br/>
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“Maybe you can add some unpractical frilly crap to it, make it feel more like <em>you</em>.” He gives her a teasing glance and she smirks, tugging at the pauldrons.<br/>
<br/>
“These are not practical.”<br/>
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“If you get poked at by swords they are." He nods towards her chest, raising his eyebrow. No wonder she doesn’t want armour if they keep giving her stuff that doesn’t fit. “And if you wear the right size. Those are way too tight - and they don’t cover your chest.”<br/>
<br/>
“Look who’s talking,” she mutters, making him chuckle before she goes back to the hopeless attempt to pull the jacket further down over her broad hips. The clothes do a lot to help with the disguise, he’ll give her that: all her curves are hidden in that armour, making her look anonymously shapeless.<br/>
<br/>
“Are we ready?” she asks. “I brought wine. It’s likely undrinkable, but it’s never stopped us before.”<br/>
<br/>
He looks at her, scrutinizing, trying to imagine how the foot soldiers would remember her, if they'd dared to steal enough glances of her to have a clear picture of this plump redhead.<br/>
<br/>
Then, shifting position slightly he gestures towards her hair and she tilts her head to the side, looking up at him as if inviting him to touch her; she pulls down her hood and bares her neck. So much soft, freckly skin greets him there that for a moment he loses himself in the sight of it. The weird human scents, the even weirder flurry of contradicting impulses she pulls out of him, the way her body looks like it would taste like an Orlesian dessert. All joking aside, he’s not usually distracted by these things because there’s a time and place for everything. But with a lot of lines blurring these days, this too shatters a bit around her, adding to the other oddities.<br/>
<br/>
He takes another moment, clears his mind.<br/>
<br/>
“<em>What</em>?” Her voice is low, a little impatient.<br/>
<br/>
“Your hair, Boss. Tuck that in,” he says and lets his gaze wander over her wild mane of red hair that looks like bloodstone set on fire. Hands working in the dark, she fastens it in a low ponytail so it disappears entirely out of sight.<br/>
<br/>
“Better?”<br/>
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He confirms it with a nod. “Come on now, it’ll be worth your time, I promise.”</p><p>She plays along well, better than he'd have thought and whenever they skirt too close to the truth, he manages to steer them back on track. </p><p>And Boss's smile at the end of it is loose and genuine, maybe a little puzzled. Which had been sort of the point, anyway. Get her closer to the heart of it all, make her see the people she’s got on board. Bull has watched the Andrastians pile their faith and hopes on her for several months now, watching the gradual eruption. He's seen soldiers on their knees, grown people crying about signs from the Maker. Boss hasn’t flinched but she’s grown angrier, more worried. She's turning into an idea and he figures she must hate it. And despite the overwhelming number of pilgrims, most of the people in their ranks are capable and sturdy, not fawning over Andraste’s chosen but willingly here because they want to fight. They don't follow a figurehead as much as they want to fix what's broken and he had wanted her to know. </p><p>"Thank you," she says. "This was really good."<br/>
<br/>
"Figured it might help. You've got a good army coming along. Remember that, no matter what comes next."<br/>
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Boss holds up the bottle that's still half-full. "Help me finish this?"<br/>
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He grins. "You know it."<br/>
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*</p><p><br/>
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</p><p>"Damn, Chief." Krem's tone is low and overly sweet, which means he's preening about his starting position, the cards at hand. "If you had helped old Fisher half as much as you’ve helped her Worship already, the Chargers might never have been formed, eh?"</p><p>"That’s not the same thing.”<br/>
<br/>
They both know it isn’t; they both know it doesn’t matter for soldier jargon. They also both know it’s entirely true that Bull holds the Inquisitor to entirely different standards than their old commander.<br/>
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“<em>Right</em>.” There’s a glint in Krem’s eyes that is so amused that it almost pisses Bull off for real. Almost.  “Poor old Fisher, if only he’d been an <em> inscrutable </em> redhead-”<br/>
<br/>
“Krem,” he warns, feeling a sudden urge to tackle the smart-mouthing kid to the ground. He grabs his shield, getting into position. “Fisher was an incorrigible ass." </p><p>"Uh-huh." Krem flashes a grin before he launches his attack and Bull sees it, even if it’s coming for his blind side and even if it’s not perfect - but for once he’s not wide nor fast enough to block it.<br/>
<br/>
“Good one,” he grunts from the ground, shaking tufts of grass from his horns. In Krem’s face he can read delight and pride and a shade or two of mischief.<br/>
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Tevinter techniques, indeed. </p><p><br/>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Garbolg's Backcountry Reserve (Fallow Mire)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>“So you don’t fear the undead,” he says, holding out a mug to her. “What about demons?”</p>
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<p>Anne <em> feels </em> magic for years before it ever manifests in her, carries it like a dark longing at the back of her mind, an unburied grief. Feels the undead around them, notices their movement through an open window, a forgotten corner, lingering in the presence of a loved one. There are no words attached to the impulses she picks up, no inherent meaning, only emotion. Raw, bloated emotion. Magic is made to serve man and there can be no serving through <em> this </em> . <br/><br/>“Show me,” Evelyn urges. “Make something or you’re not a mage.” <br/><br/>They both hope so hard, so <em> much</em>, that she’s right. <br/><br/><br/><br/>* <br/><br/><br/><br/>Her first magic is so quiet she hides it for years. A tremble, a whimper that she's the only one who even notices.</p>
<p>It's a tiny little patch of frost beneath her fingertip on the window in her bedchamber. A few spots of glittering snow caused by nothing in particular, meaning even less.</p>
<p>They tell her later that it's a weak magic, more of a siphoning of other people's powers. This, they let her know, is not a good sign. </p>
<p>They tell her that <em> actually </em> most children display their first signs of magic by setting something on fire. Or levitating a dearly loved object out of harm's way. Or causing a jolt of lightning meant to defend someone. Compared to that, Anne gathers, her magic is a dark shade, a <em> corruption</em>. </p>
<p>They tell her that a child’s temper throws off slices of elemental magic, that their uncontrolled emotions are too strong for any barriers to hold up, revealing their magical inclinations. Most mages are young when it happens, almost everyone under the age of ten, many as young as four or five, no more than shivering little things as they are brought in. The Circle of Ostwick has a whole tower for the youngest, full of laughter and bruises and screams in the night. <em> Mother! I wanna go home, I promise to be good </em> but of course nobody goes home; the Maker has marked them all. </p>
<p><br/>And then Anne, old and clumsy, her girl-body halfway transformed into a woman, growing wildly, straining against her clothes, her <em> life. </em> And her magic, always too big for her spells or not big <em> enough </em> . It scatters around her, like her hopeless tears. <br/><br/><br/><br/></p>
<p>*<br/><br/></p>
<p><br/><br/>She’s fifteen and the golden ones pass their Harrowing. Heads held high, magic flowing out of them so effortlessly. Maeve and Shianni, Lucas and Bronn. Their bodies seem far removed from her own now, like different entities entirely. <br/><br/><em> There is something wrong with me</em>, she writes in her diary that she burns as soon as the words are on paper, writing not to preserve, only to relieve herself of the weight of her own thoughts. <em> Whatever is inside me is dark and disgusting, full of the Maker’s wrath. </em> <em> <br/></em> <br/>She’s sixteen and the only thing that is easy is solitude. Her magic forms around the Veil, forms around her own spirit, tugging and tearing and she’s stiff with fear every time. Enchanter Lydia holds her dry, smooth hands around Anne’s cold and sweaty ones and speaks of control, of containment, of how to sort out the noise and refine the energy. Hers is the kindest voice, the one that still hasn't lost hope to wring something out of Anne Trevelyan's pathetic shape. <br/><br/>“You know you make the spells from within yourself, Anne,” she says patiently. “That’s where the heart of it lies.” <br/><br/>Anne doesn’t tell her that this is what she fears most of <em> all</em>. To stand there with magic that carries the mark of her soul, that reeks of everything that is rotten inside her. <br/><br/><br/><br/>* <br/><br/><br/><br/>She’s seventeen and the children run around her, bodies lit with the magic they’re taught to refine, to hone into perfection. Anne’s body is tall and round, never a weapon of precision, merely an obstacle, a wall between her mind and the world. Her magic mirrors that; it never rises, only falls. <br/><br/>She’s eighteen and they will make her a Tranquil, she’s sure of it. One made not from a rebellious heart but from a lack of power, a final verdict for her pathetic fate. Perhaps she ought to be allowed to be a researcher, Lydia says to the Grand Enchanter one night, all the unspoken questions hanging in the air above them. It's common knowledge by now that her nobility is the shield that sits between Anne and the <em> kindness of tranquility, dear</em>. <br/><br/>"Maybe for the best," one of the Templars tells another. Standing close, two pairs of eyes on her while she walks through the corridor. "They don't put up much of a fight."</p>
<p>"Oh <em> do </em>be decent about it," the other Templar's voice is rough but not angry. Never angry about such trivial matters. </p>
<p>The first Templar chuckles. "I'll be decent when those fat tits bounce above me."</p>
<p>Afterwards she thinks a lot about what shook her enough to take command.<br/><br/>Perhaps it's her vanity. Upbringing and privilege die hard and no ill-bred soldiers in Chantry coating are allowed to define her. <br/><br/>Perhaps it’s the sheer horror of the infamous rite that slices through all of her defences. It's not the loss of magic - she's never <em> had </em> magic, it's never been a gift, only a wreck of a struggle - but the dissolving mind. The thought of losing the only thing she is proud of. Perhaps it’s the faint hope that there's someone worth saving in there. <br/><br/>Perhaps it’s merely time.<br/><br/>Either way, Anne feels the spell like a bolt of thunder in her body before it hits - a flood of ice, of frozen rage smashing into the wall between the Templars, followed by another one as they jump into action. Frozen mid-step, they remain helpless on the floor while others arrive and Anne wills the magic to cease, holding in the remaining mana the way she would a horse. Something clicks in her head, the sound of something inevitable.</p>
<p>"<em>That's </em> how," Lydia says quietly much later, when Anne has been punished and interrogated for what feels like another lifetime to replace this one. "Good girl."</p>
<p>The other mages, bored with the dull everyday life in a mostly quiet Circle, make the most of it - <em> frigid cow, he’s quite the looker, too, she should have gone with it  </em>- and talk for years about the redhead in the eastern tower, the prissy noble who couldn’t take a few compliments. Did you know, they say, that was the first time she even cast a proper spell?</p>
<p><br/><br/><br/>* <br/><br/><br/><br/>“You’re the weakest mage in the Inquisition,” Solas tells her in his detached manner that somehow endears him to her. “Your powers are but a fraction of Dorian’s or Vivienne’s” <br/><br/>She isn’t offended, she knows he’s right. <br/><br/>“But the way you draw your energy from your surroundings is truly refined.” He looks at her and smiles. “It’s very astute, very subtle. You truly allow yourself to be a vessel. I am glad to fight alongside you.”</p>
<p>"It was not a highly regarded form of magic in the Circle, let me tell you," she says and Solas makes a disgusted noise.</p>
<p>"Of course not. They only recognise strength or what they perceive as such."<br/><br/>And unexpectedly, Solas teaches her more than even Lydia, offers her an undefined kind of friendship that looks like nothing else, not that either of them has a lot to compare it to. She thinks that whatever happens to them in the future, whatever fate the Inquisition walks towards, she will always be grateful for that.</p>
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<p>The plague has marked the place, in that dark and subtle way suffering has of claiming its surroundings. They travel in small groups, spread out over the marshland and keep their eyes open in the heavy beat of rain. <br/><br/>Cole roams the edges of the road, looking more a spirit than ever before and Vivienne walks behind him, mouth pursed, senses sharpened. <br/><br/>“The veil really <em>is </em>thin here.” Anne frowns into her own statement, touching the air tentatively to test its boundaries. It's fractured. And unsteady, much like Haven had been, had <em>felt</em>, with the Breach shaking above their heads. “It’s drawing out the undead.” <br/><br/>They have stayed with her, through the years. Echoes, shapes, whispers so faint she never even considers them. Only in places like this do they swarm to a point where she notices.<br/><br/>“<em>So</em> glad you brought me, Boss,” Iron Bull mutters beside her. “Walking corpses <em>and </em>aggressive negotiations with the Avvar. Well, count me in for the latter. Those assholes are at least easy to hit.”<br/><br/>She has to smile when she glances his way, fascinated by how his - albeit very temporarily - fractured composure and grumpiness renders him younger and more alive, less battle-worn. When he notices her attention, he glances back, a curious glint in his eye. <br/><br/>“The undead really don’t bother you?” <br/><br/>“I’m very bothered by <em>how </em>they died here.” There are corpses in piles, corpses in abandoned buildings, corpses haphazardly executed and corpses drowned. The air is thick with disease, with pain. “But these unfortunate remains? No. They’re just unrestful spirits.”<br/><br/>He grunts. “Now you sound like Solas.”<br/><br/>“Maybe. But whatever they are, they’re… <em>mild</em>. Not monstrous like darkspawn. Or red templars. Besides, I’m more afraid of Venatori mages. Or nobles coming to Skyhold to bicker about land and coin, or the Qunari coming to burn down every village.”</p>
<p>Bull shakes his head at the last example. “Yeah, don’t think that’s a priority for the Antaam at the moment, Boss.”</p>
<p>“And you’re not a priority for these undead.” Anne lights her staff slightly as they approach a piece of the road that appears half-swallowed by the water. “They just happen to be around. They have no agenda of their own. They’re just drawn to us because we radiate life and emotions."<br/><br/>“<em>Yes</em>. Laughter and hatred and love. You burn so bright, the Iron Bull,” Cole adds suddenly, unbidden and in that airy tone that Anne understands most of her companions find unsettling even if she doesn’t. “They did, too. <em>Throat swelling, stomach churning. Not long</em> <em>now. We could not stop it. No one left to burn my body</em>. They know they’re dead, they just mourn it. Especially the children. They tried to run.”<br/><br/>If she didn’t know better, Anne could have sworn Bull had just shivered. <br/><br/></p>
<p><br/>*<br/><br/><br/><br/>Later, they put up camp near a dank cave and Anne sits by the fire, trying to warm her hands and go over the supplies. The fighting had been manageable but tiring, the surroundings not giving them even an inch of advantage. <em> We continue tomorrow </em> , she had said, worn down from the dampness, the cold and the unrelenting rhythm of enemies dragged up from the bog. There’s no way to thread unnoticed so they have to save their strength, refill it. <br/><br/>Iron Bull sits down beside her, stretching out his braced leg in front of him. It must bother him, she thinks, especially in places like this. <br/><br/>“So you don’t fear the undead,” he says, holding out a mug to her. “What about demons?” <br/><br/>“All mages fear demons.” She eyes the content briefly - liquor of some kind; he had offered to carry anything they found in the bog so it might be a recent find, pilfered today, aged in a plagued pit of the darkest corners of the Thedas; it smells strong, a little acrid. It will do, as it always does, it will wash away the ghosts of today. “To some extent, at least.” <br/><br/>“Good. They should.” <br/><br/>“Have you witnessed it?” she asks, remembering his discomfort at Redcliffe and after, all the little hurts it had dragged up in him and all the ways he refused to discuss it later. A warrior’s mind, intent on closing all wounds, moving on. She has not yet mastered it, isn't certain she wants to. “Possession?” <br/><br/>He frowns. “Yeah."</p>
<p>Anne tastes the liquor and winces as the first sip travels down her throat. "Seheron?" <br/><br/>"Mostly." His unwillingness to delve into the matter is as obvious as his horns, glaringly visible signs around him. </p>
<p>For a while they sit shoulder to shoulder without speaking, preoccupied with their own matters. She counts the potions and poultices, he seems to count the silences around his memories.</p>
<p>“Which demon is worse?” he asks, eventually. </p>
<p>“Depends on the mage.” She knows he will not pressure her for details if she stops now, has never really prodded for details about anything, which used to surprise her even if it no longer does. Now it merely fits her idea of him, the shape he has made for himself in her mind. "People think Rage is hard to resist but it’s not, for most of us. It’s a strong emotion but it passes. Or rather, it comes and goes. Nobody feels rage all the time.”<br/><br/>Bull drinks and grunts something that she can’t interpret. </p>
<p>The elfroot smells faintly in her hands as she crushes it and sprinkles it over the frog leaves before adding the strong-smelling peppermint roots she found the other day. He seems to wait for her to continue, either making mental notes to pass on to command or he just wants to hear her ramble about demons. Maybe it’s a fear treatment thing. She doesn't mind either way; his company is easy and lecturing is in her blood, the audience matters little. <br/><br/>"Pride is difficult, it's a strong force and it sort of taints you, no matter what you do or think of yourself, you have some pride. Same with Desire. Everyone wants things. And someone who's been stripped of everything and removed from their family...."</p>
<p>“Sounds like a system built to fail.”<br/><br/>Her feelings are still raw around these topics, she can feel them rise as he looks at her, so <em> certain </em> of his own assessments, the man from a culture where the mages take the chains and stitches as soon as their magic forms. Fettering them to avoid an uprising, trap them inside their own bodies. Swallowing a large mouthful of her drinks, she bites back images of the saarebas she’s seen, in books and outside of them, their eyes blank with submission. And yet: all those years at the mercy of the templars, the goodwill of your fellow mages. A culture of resentment, of squealing, of trying to wash the sin off your hands. <br/><br/><em> No one fights well for their captors, </em> Blackwall had said when she recruited the mages in Redcliffe and he hadn’t meant the Qunari. <br/><br/>“It did,” she replies, her voice even more curt than she would have thought.</p>
<p>Bull raises an eyebrow and looks at her. “Yeah. Suppose it did.”<br/><br/>Anne finishes her drink and holds out the mug for a refill. He pours without hesitation. <br/><br/>“It’s such a bloody waste,” she says, still thinking about the war, the Conclave, the dirty heart of it all. They’ve never really talked about it, it’s always on her mind. “Magic is complex and war is so <em>blunt</em>. And in the end it forced people to pick a side, forced their hands. The Chantry has failed so badly and the rebels left us with horrible choices, I could not even pick a side.” <br/><br/>Could not or would not. She reckons there is little difference. <br/><br/>The war had not reached Ostwick, despite Lydia’s death and the turmoil that followed. The blood had dried quickly, the Templars retreated and the nobility had served as a protection against the most radical expressions, moving the battles to courtyards and banquets. That is to say the deaths had taken place elsewhere. Out of sight, out of mind. At the end of the day, most mages simply left and that is the story they will tell of the fall of Ostwick’s Circle. She doesn’t know if it’s a true one or not. <br/><br/>“I’ve gathered as much.” He nods, looks thoughtful. Her war probably isn’t even a small ink stain on the map compared to what he’s lived through but it’s <em> hers </em> and she feels protective of the people they’ve lost. "Did you lose someone important?"</p>
<p>His voice shifts, deepens as though he's using a different part of himself asking this, another dimension of the man who calls himself Iron Bull though Anne, she suddenly realises, has no idea what his real name is.</p>
<p>And it always bloody <em> works </em>, too, this attentive side of him that pries up small tears in the protection that surrounds her. He comes at her like a mana drain, only softer, slower.</p>
<p>"Yes." She nods into the concoction that’s simmering beside her, touches the half-empty bowl of spindleweed roots that she’s been drying ever since Haven. The healing powers in them are stronger, if used correctly they can bind wounds for hours, though it requires pulling the entire herb up from the ground, making the practice all but forbidden in most areas. The Frostback Mountains, however, had little to say in the matter as Anne marched through it. </p>
<p>"Sorry about that." He sounds genuine; he probably is. Qunari ought to be used to losses.</p>
<p>Anne returns her attention to the campsite occupation that has become her most frequent pastime activity recently. </p>
<p>Blessed be the ever-present tasks for her hands, the jars and boxes she uses for herbs and flowers. Far from well-stocked libraries and hours to devote to magical studies, she buries herself in herbology to maintain her own sanity, fill the spaces between; maybe it works even better, she thinks, because this never <em> ends </em>. </p>
<p>The frog leaves are fresh and smell faintly, mingling with the faded scents of the elfroot and the spindleweed. </p>
<p>"Try this for your leg," she says, holding out the fresh poultice for Iron Bull. "I'm experimenting with something new. You can be my first patient. I'm counting on your honesty."</p>
<p>Bull scrutinizes the offering, probably just as eager to try a remedy for what Anne assumes is a more or less constant pain of various severity, as he is unwilling to admit a weakness. He’s never told her the reason he wears a brace; as a mage she’s so used to people around her nursing their secrets that she doesn’t even notice when her companions do it here, so used to filling in the blanks of someone’s personal history herself that it takes an honest, conscious effort not to.   </p>
<p>Tilting the small cup in her hand, she looks at him again, expecting nothing. Then he surprises her by taking it without further preamble, making a low sound of approval. </p>
<p>"Peppermint?"</p>
<p>She nods. "Gives it a bit of sting, but it's good, I promise."</p>
<p>"Plus, it smells damn nice." He grins. His free hand has already begun to roll up the leg of his trousers and she follows the movements, lost in thoughts of how deftly he does it and how many times he must have performed this very action. There are occasions when she thinks about him like a map of war, like Blackwall is one, and wonders about the borders and the marks - where did he suffer defeat, which ones were his victories? Who drew the lines that surround him? </p>
<p>"That, too," she says.  <br/><br/>Without being asked, she provides a bandage from her pack and Bull fastens it. </p>
<p>And she holds his gaze somewhere between her doubt and her hope, thinking about trust and fear. <em> You don’t trust me </em> , Bull had said a few months ago back when they were still slouching through the incessant fighting among Templars and mages in the Hinterlands and his presence in her life had been strange and overwhelming. <em> Good for you </em> , <em> you shouldn’t </em> , he had said then as though a mage’s lack of trust in anyone but herself is an accomplishment, something that has required an effort. <br/><br/>It hasn’t changed; everything else has. <br/><br/>“Thanks, Boss,” Bull says and raises his mug towards her. <br/><br/>Anne finds her own and mirrors his gesture. <br/><br/>There’s fear here, a thin undercurrent of it along the outskirts of their bodies, buried deep inside them. There’s fear and betrayal and scars. She sees it in all of them, all these agents she’s gathered for her purpose. <br/><br/>But there’s hope, too. Hope for the future, for change, for better days. For the revelation that the swirling current inside yourself is made of light and promises rather than the corruption you hold out against. <br/><br/>He smiles at her, a wide grin that makes a noise in the dark corners of her. </p>
<p><em> Please don't hurt me</em>, she thinks and downs her last drink, suddenly loathing the vulnerability outside the constricting Circle walls. At least a prison also protects what it cages. </p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Dragon Piss (Fallow Mire)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Like all the previous times he’s been on the edge of it, dying is pretty overrated.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>x. </strong><br/><br/>He’s just a kid, unhorned and soft - <em> fat as a qalaba</em>, Vasaad says, racing him to the outskirts of the jungle where the rocks form challenges and the sun never reach - and they climb the old trees and even older stone. They stumble, kids always do up there and that is the very clever reason they are not allowed to go. But they're just kids, far from clever. They stumble and fall and Vasaad is lucky, gets caught on a few softer corners and tree branches; Ashkaari <em> crashes </em>. </p>
<p>Everything after is blurry and gentle, the edges softened by potions.<br/><br/>“What <em> were </em> you supposed to do today?” Tama asks, without removing her hand from his arm. <br/><br/>Slowly, grasping for his memory, he begins to rattle off the tasks and duties; they’re as many as his fingers. Maybe that’s the point, to make them remember. <br/><br/>“So why <em> did </em> you run to the jungle?” <br/><br/>Ashkaari has no answer that Tama will want to hear so he drags it out, pretending to think while her touch remains. </p>
<p>"You must take better care of yourself," she says sternly. </p>
<p>The Qun hates wastefulness and dead imekari is a terrible shame. For her, for them all. He doesn't want to make Tama look bad. He will remember. </p>
<p>For several months, at least. <br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><strong>x.</strong> </p>
<p>“Welcome back,” Armaas says. His commander, the voice in the field. <br/><br/>Hissrad can’t remember being gone, but his body is full of pain. </p>
<p>A broken rib, a punctured lung, a long, deep wound running from his left shoulder blade to right side and he has to sleep propped up on his stomach in the infirmary. He learns that he has been out for days.<br/><br/>He learns, too, that they're right about his commander. Doesn't lose a single man, they say. He leads from the front and shouts you back from the dead if he has to. The intense pair of eyes that follows Hissrad's every move here certainly looks like it belongs to someone who could. </p>
<p>Years later, on Seheron, he’ll look into those eyes again before his axe falls down over Armaas's neck. <em>Your soul is dust, Tal-Vashoth</em>, he'll think but he won't be sure ever again.  <br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><strong>x.</strong> <br/><br/>“Your blocking is still shit,” Hissrad manages from where he lies propped up by pillows and blankets and a wasted bedroll. Even his horns hurt. <br/><br/>“Your <em> plans </em> are still shit,” Vasaad counters. “You’ll be the death of me, big guy. Can’t believe they gave you command.” <br/><br/>“Maybe you were the only other option.” <br/><br/>“Maybe they just want to let Seheron kill you,” Vasaad says and there’s warmth and mockery and bone-hard truths in the joke. <br/><br/>Hissrad grins. <br/><br/>It must be the hundredth time one of them gets wrecked in battle, yet every single one feels like absolute crap, everyone worse than the others. Hissrad has carried Vasaad’s skinny ass across half a jungle, cursing into the skin on his back - <em> don’t you dare, asshole </em> - and Vasaad’s dragged him out of burning buildings, pits of poison, traps laid by mages and rebels and they’ve always survived. <br/><br/>They’ll always survive until one of them fails. <br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><strong>x.</strong> <br/><br/>Their newest Viddathari may be little more than a twitchy kid but he’s got hands strong as iron, knows curses in several tongues and he refuses to leave Hissrad’s bedside until Hissrad gets well enough to carry him out and lock the door. <br/><br/>“Hey!” the kid protests but Hissrad is determined. His right arm may still be broken and the bone-deep wound along his side smarts like <em>fuck</em> but malnourished elves are tiny. <br/><br/>“Sorry, Gatt,” he says and pats the elf’s head. “Can’t recover with an audience.”</p>
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<p><br/><br/><br/><br/>Boss is heading towards the building where they expect to find the clan leader of the Avvar, her jaw set and her determination cut in stone, as if she’s gone and become a brawler when Bull wasn’t looking. <em> They have my soldiers </em> . She had been very closed-off this morning, grim and focused, barely had time for a briefing before they set out and her tone is still clipped whenever someone brings something up with her. <br/><br/>“Surely you are not challenging their chieftain in <em> battle</em>, darling?” Vivienne’s voice betrays nothing but Bull is willing to bet she isn’t looking forward to having her day ruined by a bashed-in skull. <br/><br/>“It will be <em> fine</em>.” <br/><br/>At first it almost is. </p>
<p>As fine as it ever is, fighting in someone else's stronghold, lacking every advantage of the enemy. But for a while they can make up for what they lack in strength with what they possess in terms of sheer determination. </p>
<p>Until they can't.<br/><br/>“Take out their mages!” <br/><br/>“Let’s not,” Bull growls, carving his blade into the spine of an attacker. <br/><br/>In the corner of his eye he can see the Avvar leader rushing forth, his greataxe in front of him, ramming into their flimsy line of defense and Bull curses, trying to wrestle free from the archers he’s stuck with but it takes too long. Vivienne shouts something, Boss shouts something back and when Bull finally shoves the last dead archer from his blade, there’s no time left. <br/><br/>He pushes the mages back, hears them swear at him and then, things become a little blurry. </p>
<p><br/><br/>--- <br/><br/><br/></p>
<p>He wakes up in darkness. Total, throbbing darkness and his first thought is that he’s lost his other eye. That would <em> definitely </em> be shitty. <br/><br/>“Bull, can you hear me?” <br/><br/>He does, he can. <br/><br/>But when he tries to speak, there are no sounds emerging from his body. Great, now he’ll be both blind <em> and </em> mute. What a gift to send back to Par Vollen. Maybe they can put a ribbon on his horns. <br/><br/>He feels her hands on his chest, magic flowing out of them and into him and it’s soft, like a warm bath but then she twists it, angles it so he gasps for air instead, crying out in pain, and immediately it stops. She’s leaning over him, judging by her breath against his neck, her voice closer to his ear now. <br/><br/>“I’m <em> sorry</em>.” The pad of her thumb brushes over his cheek. “I’m <em> so </em> sorry, Bull, but I have to do that again. I’m trying to find what’s wrong.” <br/><br/>Less talking, more healing, he thinks. <br/><br/>She does the same magical crap again. And again. The pain is just as sharp, just as staggering. He feels like he’s losing his mind. There’s something broken that won’t mend, something stubborn that won’t budge. </p>
<p>“Hurry,” Vivienne says somewhere nearby. “He’s bleeding quite a lot, darling.”<br/><br/>“I <em> know</em>. Can you… <em> shit</em>.” <br/><br/>Boss’s touch leaves him and if he could speak, he would have asked for it to return. Magic or not, her hands are soothing and if he’s dying here, he’d like to feel calm about it. <br/><br/>Like all the previous times he’s been on the edge of it, dying is pretty overrated. A burning, painful kind of overrated that he could do without. In the end lies glory, so the Qun claims. Perhaps that's right, he just can't see it. But then again his eyesight never really recovered from losing one eye. <br/><br/>Even bad jokes are wasted on death. <br/><br/>The last thing he hears is Boss, her voice increasingly desperate, telling him to stay with her as she pulls at the threads of his flesh with her magic, forcing it to close over his wounds. <br/><br/></p>
<p><br/>--- <br/><br/><br/>He drifts in and out of consciousness and sleep and through it all he can hear her voice. <br/><br/>In fact, she never stops talking. <br/><br/>She’s quiet when she’s nervous and she talks when she’s afraid; he knows this about her. He <em> knows </em>this about her and in this particular setting, it twists its way into the back of his mind, lingers. </p>
<p>As the pain torments him and whatever draughts and spells he’s been exposed to do their thing, he hears her mutter her way through what sounds like magical theory in Orlesian. Between a nightmare and a potion-induced episode about ghouls he can discern sentences from a book on the Inquisition of old - he knows because the nights in camp get long and sometimes there's nothing to do but read the only thing someone like Cassandra or Boss has carried with them. He prefers it when they bring Varric’s crappy but hilarious smut novels over the tedious ones on human history, but he’ll read anything. </p>
<p>"You can't take blows meant for me," she tells him because - as he’s come to understand - she truly has no idea what front-line bodyguard <em> means</em>, its concept as foreign to her as stealth or frivolity. <br/><br/>Bull replies in grunts and monosyllabic words. <br/><br/>“Don’t die on me, you stupid man,” she whispers to him as he drifts out of sleep momentarily, blinking as the sunlight from the window falls across her features. It makes her look on fire, lit with the sun itself. If he had been an Andrastian, he’d probably be praying by now.   <br/><br/>“I’m sorry,” she says and he’s feeling more awake by then, though not awake enough to argue through the lack of strategy with his boss. He keeps his eyes closed. Feels her hands running over his chest, then quickly brushing against his forehead. She’s got the lightest of touches; it leaves some kind of mark. “This is on me. It’s my fault. <em> Please</em>, survive.” <br/><br/><br/><br/>---<br/><br/><br/><br/>He wakes up, properly now, to her sleeping form. <br/><br/>The room is dimly lit but his senses have returned, making it possible for him to discern the actual shapes of everything around him. A pile of medical supplies by his bed, a couple of books, a warm blanket and a goblet of what looks like water. Outside the only window in the room, darkness has fallen. <br/><br/>He feels sluggish and heavy, unused to his own body. <br/><br/>And there’s a sense of oddness somewhere below his chest.  <br/><br/>At first he can’t tell what the sensation comes from and blinks, prepared for all sorts of bad news as always after being knocked out in battle. You never know what limbs you’ve lost or what new impairment you’ve suffered, any warrior could tell you that. But this, Bull realises rather quickly, this isn’t <em> him</em>. <br/><br/>It’s Boss, sleeping with her face pressed into his belly, her arms spread out over his upper body and her hair tickling his chest. Small puffs of warm breath dampen his skin as her body rises and falls over his; there are soft snores and sleep-sounds and there’s an intimacy to the scene that snakes its way into his chest, the unfamiliar outline of it at once thrilling and strange. <br/><br/>It’s definitely… <em> something</em>. <br/><br/>All the gentleness in her, everything about her that she keeps hidden as they work methodically side by side to push this damn world back from the brink of destruction, is suddenly visible in the way she’s sleeping, unarmed, <em> undone</em>. Her hair is loose, strands of it cascading over his flesh; her neck is bared and looks more inviting in the candlelight than he’s ever seen it before; lacking its usual multi-layered outfit, her body sleeps free and soft, curved around him, around itself, the generous shape of her ass almost impossible not to reach out and touch. <br/><br/>It’s the intense privacy of the moment, he thinks. The intimacy of sleep coupled with the fact that she had worried. About him. <br/><br/>He pretends to be asleep when she wakes, startling herself, bolting upright like someone’s caught her in the act which effectively ruins <em> his </em> . Bull can’t hold back a laugh, even though it hurts deep inside him, all the way up along his ribs. Boss flushes bright red, cursing under her breath. The tension in her body is so acute, so severe that it practically cuts through the air. For a brief moment he wonders if she’ll set something on fire. <br/><br/>Then, when she forces herself to look at him, he can see nothing but relief in her eyes. It hits him, like a hammer. Maybe it hits her, too, because she scratches the back of her head and looks away. <br/><br/>She takes a step to the side. Another one forward. Glances at the doorway over her shoulder.  <br/><br/>“I’m - this-” she exhales slowly. “Not a <em> word</em>, Bull.” <br/><br/>He remains exactly where he is, watching her and grinning - because it seems to infuriate her in a subtle and delightful way and also, <em> mostly</em>, because he can’t help himself. <br/><br/>“My lips are sealed.” He gestures towards his mouth, ignoring the pain the motion brings. “I won’t tell a living soul that you snore like a bronto, Boss.” </p>
<p>“You’re an <em> ass</em>.” Then, quiet and already half-way outside the room. “I’m glad you live.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>In memory of all those reloads I had to do for this damn fight that took place before Anne got the Knight-Enchanter specialization and became an overpowered Mary Sue.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Vintage: Warden Anras (Haven, Skyhold)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Five times Anne Trevelyan got really drunk with the Iron Bull.</p>
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    <p><b>0.</b> <br/><br/>They don't drink in the Circle of Ostwick - it's one of the first things she tells the Iron Bull, ungracefully panting her way up a steep hill, cursing her lack of hiking experience, her heavy skirts, this impossible <em> world </em>they’ve become responsible for.</p><p>They dont <em> drink </em> in the Circle of Ostwick and of course they have ample of good reasons not to. Nobody wants a drunk mage spilling magic all over the floor. Or an inebriated Templar misjudging his limits, crashing over a line or twenty-five. Their existence is one of shared responsibility and cooperation and hard liquor isn’t known for its positive effects on either. <br/><br/>It <em> figures</em>, she decides much later, that every time she’s been drunk in her life, the Iron Bull has been there with her.<br/><br/><br/></p><hr/><p>
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</p><p>They're still in Haven, still strangers of a kind and the warm wine is spicy and gentle, wrapping itself around her anxious doubts. <br/><br/>She had magical theory to write, back before it all fell apart. Had years of meticulous, <em> dedicated </em> research, of wrecked friendships and lost sleep, of travels and scattered notes, written in her cramped yet somehow still sprawling style that nobody ever knows how to decipher and that would drive her tutors back at Ostwick <em> mad</em>. A noblewoman should know how to present herself in every way.</p><p>But she got out of that, found a restricted kind of freedom that she could work with, form to her own liking. Until the Conclave.</p><p>She had magical theory to write, students to teach and then, then she didn't.</p><p>The cage outside the Circle snaps shut, shut, shut. <br/><br/>She drinks one goblet, thinks about the cult that had worshiped the rifts, even preserved one in their own keep. Madmen, the lot of them. She wants to feel angry with them for it but all she can muster up is sadness. Who is she to judge what sort of insanity people get up to when things are like <em> this </em> ? Who is even on their side? <br/><br/>“Still, worshiping the hole in the sky that craps out demons is pretty damn fucked up.” Iron Bull says beside her, tips back his own goblet and empties it and he’s not <em> wrong </em> . <br/><br/>Anne keeps drinking. <br/><br/>Another goblet and the tension in her shoulders seems to ease, as if someone’s put a thumb to all her sore spots and pressed, mercifully. It feels like confirmation. Anne has always threaded particularly carefully around alcohol, not because she dislikes it - <em> quite </em>the opposite - but because she nurses the fear that she’d make an excellent drunk. A perpetually intoxicated, eccentric woman ranting about magical theory and drowning her own social shortcomings in another serving of wine. </p><p>And later - a handful of large goblets of spicy, perfectly warm wine in the cold later - she reckons she's proven her own hypothesis with proper evidence.  <br/><br/>“This -” she makes a sweeping gesture over the room, tipping over an empty mug that lands on the floor with an ear splitting clatter. “This doesn’t improve <em> anything</em>.” <br/><br/>Oh but it does. Being here <em> does</em>. Regarding this strange companion over drinks thaws something, reaches into emotions she so very rarely allows herself as they serve no one, least of all herself. <em> And magic is made to serve man</em>, the echo sounds in her head, a little more bitter each time she hears it. </p><p>It’s been a while by now but she cannot easily sort the Iron Bull into the patterns she keeps inside her mind. His outlines are clear, the foundation of him much less so; there are patches of visible virtues and flaws and endless parts of him deliberately kept in the dark and she wants to see them although a part of her thinks <em> no, leave it, don't drag it up</em>. She’s looking at him, as though her eyes alone could parse through the layers. </p><p>There are moments when she blames his effect on her on the mysteries of him, the discrepancies and disparities. </p><p>As though he wouldn't be distracting enough even without those layers, as though the careful maneuvering of his body in these lands isn't a show in itself, she thinks, gaze tracing a gnarly scar on his left arm, running from his wrist and up. But it's not about what he <em> is</em>; it's not the otherness of him that is enough to fill out all those hollows of fascination. Anne looks at the Iron Bull and feels a connection, a thread of sameness between his life and hers and there's no sense in it but there it is all the same. A <em> feeling</em>. However unfamiliar his appearance may be, his <em> presence </em> reminds her of a senior enchanter in Kirkwall that Anne used to find the time to see, whenever possible. He, too, could steal the entire room if he wanted to but kept his powers in check, masterfully slipping through the cracks in everything, like a ghost. The stories he could tell, the might he had possessed. It had taken quite a lot of her solid self-preservation to keep her heart distant as her body had submitted to him. Now, unbidden, her mind wonders if it would be quite the same with the Iron Bull. If he'd kiss her anywhere but on her lips, avert his gaze as she gets dressed, if she'd pretend to forget his name, forget everything about him until he's at her door again, gaze averted, arms wide-open. <br/><br/>Clearing her throat, she looks away. <br/><br/>“Doesn’t make anything better,” she clarifies. To him, to her, to the rest of Thedas.   </p><p>“Sure,” he agrees, grinning. “But it doesn’t make it worse, either. That’s my theory.”<br/><br/>“Oh for - That’s not a <em> theory</em>.” She tilts her head, scrutinizes the wall behind the massive Qunari. It blurs, all of it blurs, leaving him the only clear image in her vision. “It’s <em> barely </em> a statement.” <br/><br/>Beside her Blackwall chuckles. In all honesty, Anne had forgotten he was there.<br/><br/><br/><br/></p><hr/><p>
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  <b>2.</b>
</p><p><br/>"Everything okay, Boss?"</p><p>Bull observes her over the rim of his own mug and for a beat Anne thinks he can see exactly how tired she is, that he interprets all the exhaustion like marks on her skin, reads her as a letter with no recipient. <br/><br/>After Haven she’s been given sleeping draughts, the healers that accompany them have patted her hands and placed vials in them, said <em> take these, they will help. </em> And she hasn’t. She hasn’t because she’s been afraid to lose the fragments of the memories of Corypheus as he stood before her, has stupidly feared that resolving the tension would result in losing her faint grasp of that absurd reality of Haven and the slice of the Fade in her body. <br/><br/>It hurts again, dully, like a half-healed burn. </p><p>Stifling a groan, she looks down into her empty mug of ale. Fine dwarven ale, Cabot had claimed and Anne had heard the glibness in his tone but figured he still knows more about ale than she does, no use arguing.  <br/><br/>“Just the stupid Mark.” His attention is focused on her, she can feel it burn as she tugs at the sleeve of her tunic. "It's <em> fine </em>."</p><p>"You should speak to Stitches," he offers, gaze falling on the stupid green flare that she usually keeps hidden under a strictly wrapped binding but it's <em> uncomfortable </em>and back here at Skyhold, far away from the curious and upset glances of the others, she often lets it out in the open. It’s easy to imagine that it itches less, that way, occasionally even forget it exists without its coating. "He knows plenty of unconventional healing tricks."</p><p>She makes a noncommittal sound, caught between <em> thank you </em> and <em> stop</em>.<br/><br/>When she returns to the table after having ordered more drinks, Anne leans back in her seat, arranges her hands in her lap and looks at Iron Bull again. </p><p>“It’s the fact that it <em> glows </em> that bothers me most, actually.” <br/><br/>She’s been a mage for so long she can no longer recall a time when she wasn’t. Even if she came late to the Circle, she had been a monstrosity in silence for years, carrying her mark in the shadows of the future she always knew she wouldn’t have. Diplomacy and dance lessons, learning all the Orlesian verbs and how to mold them into poetry, into pleasantries, into the sort of weightless nonsense that is used to carry implications of war, of defeat, of disaster. <br/><br/>“Yeah, I get that,” Iron Bull nods. <br/><br/>He would, of course. He has the air of someone well used to being the odd man in a crowd, always taller, bigger, always <em> horned </em> and he seems to both - rather joyfully - use it to his advantage and be genuinely tired of it at the same time. Perhaps it’s how it always goes. <br/><br/>They’re on the fourth drink - at least she is, and too drunk to keep count for anyone else - when Anne nods towards his eye-patch. It glitters vaguely, like a treasure dulled by age and wear; it speaks quietly of a past unrevealed, of another man than the one sitting here with her. Or perhaps it doesn't, perhaps that's not how he’s made.</p><p>"You ever take that off?" The question falls fast from her lips.</p><p>"Sure I do," he says, but his tone lingers around it, protectively. "Doesn't pass unnoticed, though. Kind of a huge deal, seeing someone with a hole for an eye."</p><p>Does it make him self-conscious? Does he ever look at himself and thinks he’s a monster, the way she formed a habit of doing back in Ostwick and sometimes still does, passing mirrors in a hurry, especially now, hiding her hand behind her back. <em> Stupid little Chantry girl, what’s wrong with having magic? </em></p><p>She wants to ask him, wants to motion herself next to him, to trail fingers over everything that separates and unites them, to paint a map of him under her hands. Her magic wants to touch his power, feel its magnitude and shape, all the rage and honour in his blood. </p><p>She wants to <em> see </em>. </p><p>"Like this, perhaps." She holds up the hand; it pulses with faint light, slow, steady bouts of it. </p><p>It's <em> nothing </em> like it, she can tell by the way his face remains neutral, his eye impossible to read. </p><p>"Yeah," he says, anyway. "A little like that, perhaps."<br/><br/></p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><b>3.</b> <b><br/><br/></b></p><p>Once, when the Templars finally came, she thought she'd find her freedom. </p><p>Thought that she, unlike poor Evelyn would be spared. Even though other noble mages around them would be married to influential people to secure lands and riches, she's always known this would not apply to the Trevelyans. They'd never risk their brittle standing by offering an alliance with someone carrying magic in her veins, they’re too cowardly for that, not arrogant enough.<br/><br/>The Trevelyans of Ostwick are people running things or <em> trying </em>to run things, all decorum be damned. It’s a survival strategy in a universe that wasn’t truly made for them or their particular skill sets - or lack thereof. They’re moderately wealthy, moderately good-looking - with many unfortunate exceptions - and maintain a decent standing despite quite a few disgraceful public conflicts and quarrels, despite a strong undercurrent of magic in their family trees. Like the proverbial cat they tend to land on their pampered, stubborn feet. </p><p>"But they keep bickering," she growls and pushes the pile of reports away, almost knocking them off the small corner table at the tavern. </p><p>Bull's hand reaches out - good reflexes, she notes, especially for someone his size; she's always expected him to be slow and scary rather than quick and deadly - and acts as a wall for the half-crumpled papers.</p><p>"Your family?" he asks, without looking down. </p><p>"Yeah." She glances at him, tries to tell if he's curious about the content of the reports or not. His expression is friendly. It often is, probably even more so when <em> he </em> isn’t. She wonders if anyone knows him at all or if they all do, in their own ways. "Stupid old feuds and pathetic grabs for power. Poor Josephine is concerned about our reputation so she's making me keep in touch.” <br/><br/>He doesn't comment, doesn't make a habit of poking into the Inquisition business he's here to observe and report. Or if he does, it’s too subtle for her. That notion jars in her, but she lets it pass the same way he lets other people's matters pass. It seems fair somehow.</p><p>Around them, the night is benign and full of consolation.<br/><br/>"Most of the Trevelyans in the Marches haven't heard from me since the Templars took me away." A drink later, even her family seems a bearable topic. "I assume they'll be suitably surprised to be dragged into our farce at this point."</p><p>Salvage what can be salvaged. That's the strategy. If it's a sound one, the future will be the judge of, she supposes.</p><p>"Yeah, I gathered we're reaching out to everyone with a fancy title." He shrugs. "That's supposed to be their job, though, isn't it? Protect the people from crap like demons."</p><p>"Doubt most of them would agree," Anne says, a little grumpier than intended. She thinks about her sister again, thinks about the letters she still owes her. One for each month spent at the Circle. <em> I know you must blame me for not protecting you</em>, Evelyn had written once, back when Anne still didn't even master her own magic and was headed for Tranquility. But it had never been about that, it had never been about <em> blame</em>. As capable as her sister is, she only ever deals in absolutes and various currencies of war, rendering the shades of grey that Anne is cloaked in hard to read, even harder to navigate. </p><p>"Probably not." </p><p>Anne watches Bull drink a whole tankard of ale without touching her own, pondering the similarities between southern Circle mages and the Qunari. Being refined into serving your purpose, severing the ties to family, becoming a servant of a higher authority. </p><p>"I used to believe in the Maker," she tells him, spinning her past along with the drink in front of her, tipping it right, left, swirling it around in the cup. “I was such a good little girl.”</p><p>"I used to think it would bring me joy, you know, serving the Chantry," she tells him, the Chant of Light dripping from her memories. They’re damp and dark, soaked in a faith she was raised with, raised towards and couldn't <em> find</em>. </p><p>He regards her, face shifting slightly, as if he's turning towards her stories. </p><p>"Does the Qun always make sense to you?" she asks him, not expecting an answer.</p><p>"Shit, no," he says, shaking his head so his eye-patch gleams in the light from the fireplace behind them. <br/><br/>“It’s a good life for a lot of people,” he says, a refilled tankard in front of him. “But every system has flaws.” <br/><br/>“I knew a girl once, a Saarebas. Well, I knew her before she became one,” he says and there’s softness in his gaze then, a gentleness to his voice just for a heartbeat, before he takes a swig of his drink and disappears again. Anne catches herself <em> missing </em> him, whoever he is. “We called her Baqo. <em> Huh</em>. I haven’t thought about her in years. Last I heard her Arvaarad fought in Tevinter.”</p><p>“What does that mean, <em> Baqo</em>?” <br/><br/>His mouth twists into a thin smile. “It’s from baqoun, an old siege weapon. Suited her even before she could shoot fire out of her ass.” <br/><br/>There's something there, Anne thinks, something quickly passing and yet somehow drenching the moment completely. A buried grief, subdued by time and willpower, oh she recognises those, gathers them deep into her heart. <br/><br/>“What would you call me?” she asks, later, halfway into another discussion, another life. "In Qunlat?"</p><p>His hand on the table, the scabs and scars forming an uneven pattern. Her fingers traveling over the rim of her cup, soaking up every last scrap of wine. </p><p>His eye fixed on her, his attention a warm, steady thing. A flood, wide and vast. <br/><br/>“Kost," he says eventually, <em> simply</em>, like it's nothing. “It means peace.” <br/><br/><br/><br/></p><hr/><p>
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  <b>4.</b>
</p><p>Tonight the Herald's Rest is crowded: plenty of soldiers returning from missions, others preparing to depart. A new rotation starts for some of them - for others it's never as predictable, their orders impossible to foresee. </p><p>Anne gets bottles of wine for her table. Wine and cheese and bread. As always her worry translates into hunger, a warped kind of survival instinct clawing at her. </p><p>Like the villagers in Crestwood. </p><p>If she closes her eyes she thinks she can see those remains in the caves beneath the village, the lingering devastation of the ones left to die. They had been imprints in the air, stains in the atmosphere. </p><p>Her hands, she imagines, still carry the scent of spindleweed and embrium, of belated funeral pyres. </p><p>Cullen had spoken briefly to her before she had escaped his watchful eye and slipped into the tavern. He had promised her that they'd get the mayor, leaving his fate up to her. He had spoken it like a promise, not a punishment, the same way Josephine had back when she set up that part of Skyhold. Anne's tired remark about being nearly at capacity when it comes to death had fallen flat and she's looked at that throne ever since, a towering nightmare in the corner of her eye. </p><p><em> The mayor. His shame had this shape. </em> Cole had been a shadow beside her through the entire stay in Crestwood, digging up old wounds of the landscape without the means of offering comfort and it had troubled him, she could tell. Had troubled them all, to be honest, since they've grown accustomed to mending, to soothe and piece back together, not merely <em> observe</em>. </p><p>"He seemed sneaky,” Iron Bull says and raises his goblet. “Doesn’t take a spy to figure guys like him out.”</p><p>His eyes, Anne thinks, the fear in them as she convinced him to let her help. The spirits, echoing in the fields, twisting the Fade. </p><p>“I need to speak of something else,” Anne says, fighting not to drown. <br/><br/>“Right.” He nods. Always ready to serve, she thinks. </p><p><em> Whatever I am, I’m on your side</em>. </p><p>His tales of spider-filled caves and greedy nobles carry her over the edge between jarring reality and soft-voiced intoxication and when her legs feel wobbly at the end of the night, Bull’s arm around her waist helps steady her enough to make the walk out of the tavern a little less noticeable for the crowds. <br/><br/><em> You're good,</em> she thinks with her palm over her own mouth, trying helplessly not to make noise as they're moving past the crowds and servants. He's so natural in everything he does, even in this. There's a thread of both admiration and jealousy coiling through her, landing at the pit of her stomach. He's spinning lies and crushing enemies on the front line, he's guarded and wide-open and despite everything there is to choose from, despite every brutality she's forced to commit, he calls her peace. <em> You're a good man. </em></p><p>Is he? </p><p>Does it matter?</p><p><em> Yes</em>, she thinks, faint and tired with his body far away again, her skin already missing his. Yes he is and yes it matters. Then the thoughts bleed into other thoughts of soft sheets and heavy blankets to keep out the cold. </p><p>The paintings on the wall spin around her as she finds the Fade, crashing into it like a child.</p><p> </p><hr/><p>
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</p><p><b>5.</b> <b><br/></b> <b><br/></b>The tense apprehension that comes with the effort of meeting new people makes her solemn where she sits, shoulders squared, the back of her head pressed against the wooden wall behind her.</p><p>Bull seems settled, though, completely in his element surrounded by the mercenaries under his command and she recalls what he had told her some months ago when she suggested he'd help Cullen out - that he's only good at command if he knows what his soldiers drink at a tavern and who they sleep with. </p><p>Anne had found it peculiar and oddly unprofessional then. Now, if she's being honest, she'd have a hard time denying that it's <em> exactly </em>how her inner circle of agents operate - through an intricate web of understanding and friendship, even intimacy. </p><p>That is definitely what he has with this ragtag band of fighters. Intimacy, a family. she's certain they'd all do anything their leader told them, but she's just as certain he'd protect them from all the truly horrible things that could happen. </p><p>Krem has just finished telling the story of how Iron Bull - <em> hey Krem de la Creme don't overdo it </em> - lost his eye when there's a short hooded courier standing next to their table. </p><p>“There’s a message for you, serah.” </p><p>He receives it - like a proper spy, his every movement smooth and barely noticeable - and then he reads the folded parchment in silence, a frown appearing and lingering on his face, like a bruise. It darkens his complexion; Anne wonders if anyone else notices. </p><p>The only details she manages to figure out are small, tiny things: the message is written in Qunlat, it's fairly long and whatever it says, it <em> gets </em> to him. Like nothing she's seen before it breaks apart his composure; landing so deep within him that nothing can catch it.   </p><p>"Trouble?" Krem asks, adopting a casual tone that Anne recognises in herself as worry, doubt, even fear. Like he's anticipating something worth dreading.</p><p>"Might be." Bull folds it carefully and tucks it into one of his pockets as he orders another round for the table. That's all he's going to offer his men tonight. "Or maybe it's all good."</p><p>For Anne, she notices with an odd rush of pride, he has a glance to spare as well as a reassuring nod.</p><p>"We'll talk about it in the morning, Boss."<br/><br/>He is the spy again, nothing in him betraying anything else; he sits tall and proud against the backdrop of their Inquisition, talking to the mercenaries under his command, telling tall tales and swapping war stories. It's his best genre, he always wins. Only once, she notices him placing a hand over the pocket where he put the letter, only once does he betray his own game. </p><p>That night however, Anne realises later, is the first time she witnesses the Iron Bull drunk.</p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Hirol's Lava Burst (The Storm Coast)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
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  <i>What if you've always been wrong?</i>
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    <p><br/><br/>He’s on a ship from Orlais to Ferelden when he first thinks it. That he’ll be spared. That the higher ups in the chain of command won’t search for him if he just keeps quiet for a bit - that he’s forgotten by now, that he’ll be allowed to sink into this pretense for real, let it soak him up.<br/><br/>Bullshit, of course. Delusional, laughable <em> bullshit</em>.<br/><br/>They don't waste people, they don't make deals. They don't let their faithless savages run off, they’re not like the southerners. <em> The Qun has a place for everyone, even those who despise it. Perhaps for those most of all</em>, Tama says in his memory and already back then it sounds so wistful. </p><p>Even so, he thinks of how long it was since he was in Qunandar and his mind fools him. </p><p>Slips up, shatters. </p><p>It’s an easy mistake to make, surrounded by brawling Chargers and various mercs eager to prove their worth to anyone walking past them. It’s an easy <em> life</em>, working for coin and food, meeting people and taking care of your needs at the end of the day. Simple things, but not barbaric. Most of the mercs he meets stay on the right side of honor, with or without a code or a faith to guide them and in their company he finds that he forgets his nature, catches himself pretending he could do the same if he was to remain here.</p><p>He could, couldn't he?<br/><br/>Up on the deck, with no land in sight, Bull curls his fingers around the wood and the metal bars and feels it all slip away. Par Vollen, Tama, the other kids he grew up with, the rebels and the Tal-Vashoth. Even Seheron, reluctantly, disappears with an angry <em> pop </em> at the back of his mind. It’s like pain, subsiding <em> finally</em>.<br/><br/>Distance breeds distance and all beliefs need reassurance; he places so many things between  himself and his past now, piling them up. Places waves and coins, recruits and training, missions and their glorious aftermaths and watches Par Vollen fade into the setting sun.</p><p>
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</p><p>He's happily smashing things all across Orlais when he realises how long it's been without a word from command. No orders, no intel.<br/><br/><em> Maybe</em>, he thinks as he carves a path forward through a bunch of corpses.<br/><br/>Maybe.<br/><br/>Two days later he receives a message from Par Vollen.</p><p>
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</p><p>“Whatever I am, I'm on your side,'' he says once, hollow and casual, out on the Storm Coast.</p><p>It's what he says. It's just <em> words</em>. A way to gain trust, build rapport, lay a foundation for the work to come. </p><p>Later, he means them. <em> Damn</em>, does he ever mean them. </p><p>In Crestwood, in the pouring rain inside a well-defended old keep where he watches Boss get knocked down and tossed across the ground, he <em> feels </em> them deep in his gut, feels them raw and aching in his throat. </p><p>Feels the same kind of deluded hope, the contagious scent of imagined freedom.<br/><br/></p><p><br/>*<br/><br/><br/></p><p>That night in the Herald's Rest, he re-learns for the hundredth time that he's unforgotten. That whatever tear in the fabric he left behind hasn't magically healed itself in his absence. The words are crisp, the meaning impossible to misunderstand. </p><p>He drinks himself to stupidity, as if it would change the letters, cut them out of their purposes, flatten the intent. </p><p>He drinks himself to stupidity to wrangle down the protests, break his own voice. </p><p>He drinks himself to sleep, hushing up the dreams that cannot come. </p><p>The message is just as clear the day after, when he tells Boss, looking at her over Krem's half-useless shield wall, looking at them both like they're ports in an imaginary storm out on the Boeric Sea.<br/><br/><em> Whatever I am, I'm on your side.  </em></p><p>"This is real," he says, reassuring and full of acted confidence, though it still feels like he's the one in need of it. "They wouldn’t say it if they didn’t mean it."</p><p>Why does he say that? They <em> would</em>.<br/><br/>"You're turning on us now, Chief?" Krem tries to make himself big and terrifying, shoves his genuine question behind a brawling tone that breaks something in Bull's chest.</p><p>Not a chance, he thinks. Can't say.</p><p>"With this kind of footwork?" he scoffs instead, lowering his own practice blade, angling it for a final blow. "Yeah, definitely."<br/><br/>Their jokes clatter like metal, leaving a taste of blood at the back of their tongues.</p><p>
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</p><p>The following day they head out to the Storm Coast and Bull thinks about distances again:</p><p>The time spent traveling between Seheron and Orlais, the number of hours it takes for a boat to cross the ocean to Qunandar, all the words and deeds that separate the Qun and Tal-Vashoth. The endless fields of blood and violence that distinguish Ashkaari from Hissrad, the unspeakable space between Hissrad and the Iron Bull, the unbearable differences, the mute similarities. The number of countries between his body and the body of the Qunari, their lungs, their heart.</p><p><em> What if they're wrong? </em> The voice in his head, low and menacing but also increasingly reassuring, increasingly like <em> her </em> , this human mage who stands before him out in the training grounds and changes everything, everywhere. <em> What if you've always been wrong?  </em></p><p>They're over there, he says stupidly when Boss asks him. It's been a long time, he has never thought he’d live to see the day of their arrival in the South. </p><p>She eyes him for a long time, mouth pursed, then she asks if the Qunari aren't in fact on the constant mission of converting the entire world and sure, yeah, he supposes they are, but he isn't sure. </p><p>Was he ever, about anything? </p><p>He's trying to reach for words that had belonged to Hissrad. To him.<br/><br/>There had been bright, clear days and a future so vivid, right around the corner but all that remain are grey clouds. </p><p>
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</p><p>Of course they send Gatt. </p><p>In the moment when Bull spots him, those beats before he speaks, he knows several things at once: they think Hissrad is all but gone, they think <em> it's time to come home now</em>, they consider this a last chance for a lost cause. But it's also, he knows because he knows the people that raised him, a way for Tama as the last living person responsible for the failures of Hissrad, to make amends. To rectify the mistakes he made, sustained by her faith and love.</p><p>His mind nearly caves in at that thought. </p><p>A ruin. That's all that's left of his past. </p><p>And of course they send Gatt.</p><p>And of course that's no longer enough. Bull sort of wishes it had been. </p><p>Gatt - he can tell by the glint in the other man's eyes - wishes the same. <br/><br/>“They’re my men,” Bull snaps, all but <em> growls</em>.<br/><br/>Gatt gives him a wiry, twisted glance.</p><p>"Do the right thing here, Hissrad," he says. </p><p>Boss looks at him, too, her eyes soft and troubled and Bull wants to tear the battlefield apart with his bare hands.</p><p>Go with your gut, the southerners say because their obsession with freedom has carved a hole in their sensibility. Trust your instincts, they tell each other. You've got it in you.</p><p>The Iron Bull looks at the water, salt and dark.</p><p>He'd let a whole army of strangers bleed to death before letting Krem die. That’s what his gut tells him. </p><p>He'd fight anything - anyone - to protect this strange mage from harm. That’s what his instincts say.</p><p>He doesn't want his duty, doesn't want the future of the Qun, the righting of all wrongs, the glorious enlightenment of all <em> bas</em>. He wants to <em> stay</em>. </p><p>And there it is, the savage in him staring back. Laughing. This is who he is without the guidance of the Qun, a Tal-Vashoth taking the matters of life and destiny in his hands, thinking he can choose between people, that he possesses the fucking <em> right </em> .<br/><br/><em> You’ve got it in you.</em> </p><p>Something soars at the back of his mind, inside his body.</p><p><em> Please</em>, he thinks. <em> Please</em>. It’s a word he can’t remember having used in years, not even in his head, not since Seheron. <em> Please help me</em>, he had said then, when he turned himself in to the re-educators, when he submitted willingly, <em> trustingly </em> , safe in the knowledge that they would know what was best for him. A farmer, a labourer, happy and <em> whole </em>once the taste of qamek had burned away in his mouth. But he’s never been whole and the Qun has slipped out of him.</p><p>And he looks at her, looks <em> to </em> her: to understand what he can’t say, to make the choice he cannot because he’s <em> broken</em>: Ashkaari is long gone if he ever was there in the first place; Hissrad is too flawed; the Iron Bull can’t speak the words. </p><p>Not a chance, he says in his head but he can't.<br/><br/>He <em>can’t</em>.<br/><br/>He just <em>looks </em>at her. </p><p>There are a hundred people on a Qunari dreadnought. He could tell her, to even the scores, but he doesn’t.</p><p>She looks back at him and there <em>is </em>a choice, he can see her making it. He can <em>feel</em> her, her energy seeking him the way she’s started doing and it’s bright and safe and he knows then what the decision will be.</p><p>He calls the retreat with a twisted kind of emotion - anger and regret, harsh guilt completely overshadowed by relief - as the sound vibrates through the air.<br/><br/><em>Forgive me, Tama. </em></p><p>He doesn't lift his gaze from the doomed ship; in the corner of his eye he can see that Boss doesn't, either. Her mouth is a thin line, her eyes glitters with what looks like tears. But she watches, like it's a point of pride or principle. </p><p>Quelling the strange impulse to touch her, he remains at her side, motionless as the fire crashes into the waves, licking the edges of it before dying, without mercy.</p><p>
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</p><p>*<br/><br/></p><p> </p><p>Afterwards, there's silence. </p><p>Afterwards there's silence and a camp where everyone tries to allow everyone else space, shuffling themselves around like chess pieces on a board. </p><p>"I'm sorry," Boss says and hands him a bottle of Hirol’s Lava Burst. </p><p>He can't do human sentimentality, especially not now. He wants to hit something, wants a gory battle, wants his fingers to curl around the hilt of his greatsword so badly he can almost <em> feel </em> it there, the heavy weight of its metal balancing the burning dreadnought.<br/><br/>He takes a big, greedy gulp of alcohol and clears his throat. </p><p>"Yeah, don’t-" </p><p>"I meant about the Qunari," she interrupts, her voice smoothing over the places where it hurts the most. He finds himself struggling to speak and feels grateful to have a drink at hand. "I want you to know that I regret the loss. It was not a decision made lightly."</p><p>Bull nods, knows. He had seen it in the faces of the others, in Dorian's badly contained contempt for Gatt's little speeches, in Blackwall's matter-of-factly tone. <em> Not even a choice, eh? Course you went back for your lads. </em></p><p>But for her it <em> had </em> been a choice. She had considered the lives of the many, held them up against the fate of the few and Bull wonders if she understands what the rest of them probably don't.<br/><br/>That he doesn’t break free from a tyrant’s grasp.<br/><br/>That he comes from a place of achievements, of beauty and the dream of the future. He comes from Tama's patience and truth and wisdom, from the glory of Par Vollen's cities and jungles.</p><p>That for all the brutality of the North, he comes from a place of love.<br/><br/><em> That </em> is what he tears himself away from. </p><p>Perhaps she gets it, perhaps she doesn’t but here in this terrible silence he turns towards her attentiveness and compassion, curves his body full of war into the broken line of her smile.</p><p>And for a moment, there is peace. </p><p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I amused myself by creating Evelyn's sister Anne from my fic <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/2733059/chapters/6123677">"There are names for what binds us"</a>, then I started playing her and then this happened. You really don't have to read that story, though, but it might be amusing to know that if you have, all references to Evelyn is to that particular one.<br/>---<br/>Comments are always welcome and stay safe everyone. Also, come talk to me at <a href="https://senseandaccountability.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>.</p><p>---</p></blockquote></div></div>
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